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Source: The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA);Richmond Times Dispatch;Virginia News Sources;The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
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The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
November 4, 2008 Tuesday
Metro Edition
FINALLY, POLITICAL ADS WILL BE OVER
BYLINE: Shanna Flowers shanna.flowers@roanoke.com 981-3220
SECTION: VIRGINIA; Shanna Flowers; Pg. B1
The economy is in shambles and the national debt is mounting. The American dream of homeownership is turning into a nightmare. Food costs are skyrocketing and jobs are vanishing.
Suspend for a moment, if you will, the grave issues fueling today's historically pivotal election.
The presidential race of 2008 is the most memorable in my lifetime. But this campaign has been more than politics. The road to the White House has been a soap opera with more twists and turns than Interstate 77 through Fancy Gap.
And for the first time in more than 40 years, the path to the presidency has cut a wide swath through Virginia.
The Old Dominion is a swing state.
Candidates and their surrogates have practically fallen over each other as they criss-crossed the state bartering promises for votes.
As further proof that Virginia potentially holds the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., our airwaves have been inundated with political ads.
In previous presidential years, Republican candidate John McCain would have long had Virginia wrapped up and neatly tucked in the "win" (or red) column.
Because we are in play, I can't watch an episode of "The Mentalist" without enduring an advertising catfight between McCain and Democratic contender Barack Obama, sometimes in back-to-back ads.
I never thought I'd say this, but I almost long for those erectile dysfunction commercials.
Obama fired the first salvo in Virginia when he launched his general election campaign in June in Bristol. He's darted around the state many times since and came to Roanoke last month, drawing 8,000 loyalists to the Roanoke Civic Center.
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin trumped that last week when 16,000 of her closest Southwest Virginia allies braved frigid weather to hear her rally party enthusiasts at Salem Stadium.
Whatever your politics, this election has held our rapt attention in ways I've never seen.
The fascination began with a woman and a black man competing for the Democratic presidential nomination and has only grown from that.
Then, Lordy, Iowa happened and Obama suddenly seemed like a contender. At that moment, folks got hooked on Election 2008. And like a good afternoon (or nighttime) soap, there was plenty to keep folks coming back for more.
Who can forget the day in January when Hard-as-Nails Hillary showed some emotion before the New Hampshire primary. (I still think the tears were real, but Hillary haters on my blog let me have it.)
Late in the Democratic primary campaign, Hillary conceded the race when she gave a speech in Washington, D.C., and finally cried uncle.
Over on the Republican side, a bunch of dudes battled for the nomination. If Hillary, indeed, did turn on the tears, there were none to speak of on the Republican side -- except from boredom.
McCain wrapped up the nomination early on, and his campaign seemed to sputter so badly that he had trouble drawing even small crowds.
That ended abruptly just before the GOP convention, when he picked Palin as his running mate.
The Alaska governor had a mini soap opera in her own family, with a pregnant teenage daughter. Palin became a celebrity in her own right.
Her ratings remained high for a while as she reignited the political enthusiasm of hordes of conservative working mothers and the Christian right. Then she transcended from politics to pop culture.
Palin can take credit for bringing actress Tina Fey to an even wider audience.
Fey out-Palin'd Sarah Palin on several skits on "Saturday Night Live."
Fey is just one name that contributed to this year's riveting presidential race story line.
Jeremiah Wright. Joe the Plumber. Neiman Marcus. William Ayers.
Candidates fought for face time on television shows such as "SNL," "The Daily Show," "Ellen" and Letterman. And if that weren't enough, we learned over the weekend that Obama's aunt is an illegal alien.
The 2008 presidential campaign has delivered one drama after another.
And judging from recent presidential polls, the results tonight will be the final cliffhanger.
LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
The Roanoke Times, Va., Shanna Flowers column: Finally, political ads will be over
BYLINE: Shanna Flowers, The Roanoke Times, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Nov. 4--The economy is in shambles and the national debt is mounting. The American dream of homeownership is turning into a nightmare. Food costs are skyrocketing and jobs are vanishing.
Suspend for a moment, if you will, the grave issues fueling today's historically pivotal election.
The presidential race of 2008 is the most memorable in my lifetime. But this campaign has been more than politics. The road to the White House has been a soap opera with more twists and turns than Interstate 77 through Fancy Gap.
And for the first time in more than 40 years, the path to the presidency has cut a wide swath through Virginia.
The Old Dominion is a swing state.
Candidates and their surrogates have practically fallen over each other as they criss-crossed the state bartering promises for votes.
As further proof that Virginia potentially holds the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., our airwaves have been inundated with political ads.
In previous presidential years, Republican candidate John McCain would have long had Virginia wrapped up and neatly tucked in the "win" (or red) column.
Because we are in play, I can't watch an episode of "The Mentalist" without enduring an advertising catfight between McCain and Democratic contender Barack Obama, sometimes in back-to-back ads.
I never thought I'd say this, but I almost long for those erectile dysfunction commercials.
Obama fired the first salvo in Virginia when he launched his general election campaign in June in Bristol. He's darted around the state many times since and came to Roanoke last month, drawing 8,000 loyalists to the Roanoke Civic Center.
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin trumped that last week when 16,000 of her closest Southwest Virginia allies braved frigid weather to hear her rally party enthusiasts at Salem Stadium.
Whatever your politics, this election has held our rapt attention in ways I've never seen.
The fascination began with a woman and a black man competing for the Democratic presidential nomination and has only grown from that.
Then, Lordy, Iowa happened and Obama suddenly seemed like a contender. At that moment, folks got hooked on Election 2008. And like a good afternoon (or nighttime) soap, there was plenty to keep folks coming back for more.
Who can forget the day in January when Hard-as-Nails Hillary showed some emotion before the New Hampshire primary. (I still think the tears were real, but Hillary haters on my blog let me have it.)
Late in the Democratic primary campaign, Hillary conceded the race when she gave a speech in Washington, D.C., and finally cried uncle.
Over on the Republican side, a bunch of dudes battled for the nomination. If Hillary, indeed, did turn on the tears, there were none to speak of on the Republican side -- except from boredom.
McCain wrapped up the nomination early on, and his campaign seemed to sputter so badly that he had trouble drawing even small crowds.
That ended abruptly just before the GOP convention, when he picked Palin as his running mate.
The Alaska governor had a mini soap opera in her own family, with a pregnant teenage daughter. Palin became a celebrity in her own right.
Her ratings remained high for a while as she reignited the political enthusiasm of hordes of conservative working mothers and the Christian right. Then she transcended from politics to pop culture.
Palin can take credit for bringing actress Tina Fey to an even wider audience.
Fey out-Palin'd Sarah Palin on several skits on "Saturday Night Live."
Fey is just one name that contributed to this year's riveting presidential race story line.
Jeremiah Wright. Joe the Plumber. Neiman Marcus. William Ayers.
Candidates fought for face time on television shows such as "SNL," "The Daily Show," "Ellen" and Letterman. And if that weren't enough, we learned over the weekend that Obama's aunt is an illegal alien.
The 2008 presidential campaign has delivered one drama after another.
And judging from recent presidential polls, the results tonight will be the final cliffhanger.
To see more of The Roanoke Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.roanoke.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, The Roanoke Times, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: November 4, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081104-RO-The-Roanoke-Times-Va-Shanna-Flowers-column-1104
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 4, 2008 Tuesday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
The final sprint to the finish
By Beth Fouhy and David Espo
The Associated Press
TAMPA, Fla.
Barack Obama radiated confidence and John McCain displayed the grit of an underdog Monday as the presidential rivals reached for the finish line of a two-year marathon with a burst of campaigning across battlegrounds from the Atlantic Coast to Arizona.
"We are one day away from change in America," said Obama, a Democrat who, if he wins, would become the nation's first black president - a dream not nearly as distant on election eve as it once was.
McCain, too, promised to turn the page of the era of George W. Bush, and he warned about his opponent's intentions. "Sen. Obama is in the far left lane" of politics, he said. "He's more liberal than a guy who calls himself a socialist , and that's not easy."
Republican running mate Sarah Palin was even more pointed as she campaigned in Ohio. "Now is not the time to experiment with socialism," she said. "Our opponent's plan is just for bigger government."
Late-season attacks aside, Obama led in virtually all the pre-election polls in a race where economic concerns dominated and the war in Iraq was pushed - however temporarily - into the background.
While the overall number of early votes was unknown, statistics showed more than 29 million ballots cast in 30 states and suggested an advantage for Obama. Democrats voted in larger numbers than Republicans in North Carolina, Colorado, Florida and Iowa, all of which went for President Bush in 2004.
Democrats also anticipated gains in the House and in the Senate, although Republicans battled to hold their losses to a minimum and a significant number of races were rated as tossups in the campaign's final hours.
By their near-non stop attention to states that voted Republican in 2004, both Obama and McCain acknowledged the Democrats' advantage in the presidential race.
The two rivals both began their days in Florida, a traditionally Republican state with 27 electoral votes where polls make it close.
The front-runner also choked up on the campaign's final day as he told a crowd in North Carolina of the death of his grandmother from cancer. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86.
"She died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side," Obama said of the woman who had played a large role in his upbringing. "And so there is great joy as well as tears."
McCain and his wife issued a statement of condolence.
One day before the election, no battleground state was left unattended.
But Virginia, where no Democrat has won in 40 years , and Ohio, where no Republican president has ever lost, seemed most coveted. Together, they account for 33 electoral votes that McCain can scarcely do without.
Democratic volunteers in Maryland, a state viewed as safe for Obama, called voters in next-door Virginia, where McCain trailed in the polls. The Democratic presidential candidate's visit to Virginia during the day was his 11th since he clinched the nomination.
Several hundred miles away in Ohio - the state that sealed Bush's second term in 2004 - voters waited as long as three hours in line to cast ballots in Columbus, part of heavily contested Franklin County. Poll workers handed out bottles of water to sustain them.
Lori Huffman, 38, a supervisor at UPS Inc., took the day off to vote early for McCain. "It's exciting, isn't it?" she asked, gesturing toward the long line of waiting voters.
"This is happening all over the state, from Cleveland to Dayton," said Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat trying to deliver his state to Obama.
Obama hoped so, after more than a year building an elaborate get-out-the-vote operation, first for the primary campaign, now for the general election.
The Democrat flew from Florida to North Carolina to Virginia, all states that went Republican in 2004, before heading home to Chicago on election eve.
Twenty-one months after he launched his campaign, he allowed, "You know. I feel pretty peaceful ... I gotta say."
On a syndicated radio program, the "Russ Parr Morning Show," he said, "The question is going to be who wants it more," he said. "And I hope that our supporters want it bad because I think the country needs it."
If wanting it were all that mattered, the race would be a toss up.
McCain, behind in the polls, set out on a grueling run through several traditionally Republican states that he has failed to secure. Florida, Virginia, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada were on his itinerary, as was Pennsylvania, the only state that voted Democratic in 2004 where he still nursed hopes. His last appearance of the long day, past midnight, was a home state rally in Prescott, Ariz. Obama has been running television commercials in Arizona in the campaign's final days.
The surrogate campaigners included Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democrats and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the Republicans. Both lost races for their party's presidential nomination earlier in the year, and both could be expected to try again if their ticket loses the White House.
Not so, President Bush. The man who won the White House twice was out of public view .
Palin was racing through five Bush states Monday - Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada - in an effort to boost conservative turnout for McCain. The Alaska governor has been a popular draw for many GOP base voters .
Joe Biden, Obama's running mate, campaigned in Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
"We are on the cusp of a new brand of leadership," he assured supporters.
underdog eyes comeback
Sen. John McCain is behind in the polls, and Republicans are battling to minimize their losses in the congressional races. McCain stopped at several traditionally Republican states that he has failed to secure, such as Florida, Virginia, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Arizona. President Bush stayed out of public view in an effort to help McCain. front-runner exudes confidence
Sen. Barack Obama led in nearly all the pre-election polls. Statistics showed more than 29 million ballots cast in 30 states and suggested an advantage for Obama. Democrats voted in larger numbers than Republicans in North Carolina, Colorado, Florida and Iowa, all of which went for President Bush in 2004. Obama flew to Florida, North Carolina and, finally, Chicago on election eve.
LOAD-DATE: November 4, 2008
GRAPHIC: Alex Brandon | The Associated Press Sen. Barack Obama shakes hands as he enters a rally at Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla., on Monday. David Adame | The Associated Press Sen. John McCain and his wife, Cindy, arrive at a midnight rally on the campus of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla., on Sunday.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
November 4, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
Congressional Republicans Work to Thwart Democratic Gains
BYLINE: Paul Kane; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02
In the closing days of the campaign, congressional Republicans and their allies have launched a furious, last-minute effort to prevent Democrats from making significant gains in the House and Senate today.
One embattled incumbent, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), accused his opponent, Al Franken, of secretly orchestrating a lawsuit alleging that Coleman's wife received $75,000 for no-show consulting work. Another, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), yesterday accused a federal judge and prosecutors of overseeing an "unjust trial" that resulted in Stevens's conviction on felony charges for failing to disclose gifts.
And in Wyoming, Vice President Cheney made a rare campaign appearance in his home state to support the Republican running for the House seat that Cheney himself held from 1979 to 1989 without facing a competitive reelection fight. The race is considered almost a tossup today.
Senate Democrats held out hope of gaining the nine seats needed for a filibuster-proof 60 seats, while House Democrats could add more than two dozen seats to their ranks, which would give them control of more than 60 percent of the chamber's 435 seats.
"We're going to pick up a significant number of seats that will change the face of the Senate," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said yesterday. Calling a 60-seat majority "possible but not likely," Schumer said a Democratic majority in the upper 50s would result in sweeping changes as long as Sen. Barack Obama is elected president.
Girding for large losses, Republicans said their incumbents could win if they succeed in establishing an identity independent of President Bush, Sen. John McCain and congressional GOP leaders. "Republican candidates that have established their own personal brand and have framed their races around a personal choice will survive this," said Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Only a handful of House Democrats are considered vulnerable, while more than 50 Republican seats are in play. The NRCC invested $600,000 to target one prominent Democrat, Rep. John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a 34-year House member who has been a leading opponent of the Iraq war. Murtha raised more than $1 million in the last 13 days, and former president Bill Clinton campaigned for him in Johnstown, Pa., yesterday.
Senate Republicans have increasingly framed their reelection battles as a way to rein in a possible Obama White House and raised the specter of Democrats capturing 60 seats. A Gallup Poll last week showed voters split on the question of which party should control Congress if Obama wins, with 48 percent favoring Republicans and 47 percent favoring Democrats.
Just a few races may decide whether Democrats reach 60 seats. Republicans have given up hope in three states with retiring GOP incumbents, and Democrats hold leads in four others: New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon and Alaska. If Democrats win those seven races, they would need to win two of the four races in Minnesota, Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi.
Holding a narrow lead, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continued raising funds through the weekend, sending out missives from former House speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in recent days. After some worries last week, Democrats were buoyed by internal polls suggesting Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich had opened a sizable lead over Stevens.
Stevens, the Senate's senior Republican, bought ad time for a two-minute commercial that was expected to air last night, one week after his conviction. Yesterday, after a juror in the trial was reprimanded for lying to the judge about her father's death to get out of jury deliberations [Story, A15], he said in a statement that it was "now even clearer this was an unjust trial and a flawed verdict."
Some races saw the final moments of the campaign turn toward personal attacks.
At a debate in Georgia, former state representative Jim Martin (D) questioned his opponent, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R), about whether he had inappropriately used political funds for golf vacations with lobbyists. Chambliss denied the allegation and accused Martin of relying heavily on liberal donations that are out of step with Georgia's political leanings. By Georgia law, a candidate must get more than 50 percent of the vote to win the race, and with an independent in the race, it's possible the race won't be resolved until a Dec. 2 runoff.
But no Senate race has gotten quite as personal as the one in Minnesota, where three candidates, the political parties and outside groups will spend well in excess of $50 million, making it the most expensive in the nation.
In a debate Sunday, Coleman accused comedian-turned-candidate Franken of working secretly to promote a lawsuit that a disgruntled Texas businessman filed against a Minnesota investment firm executive, which alleged the businessman steered $75,000 to the consulting firm at which Coleman's wife is employed.
Coleman denied the allegation, just as Franken rejected the charge that he was behind the lawsuit. The DSCC is airing ads showing Coleman refusing to answer questions from local reporters about the allegations, which prompted Coleman to put up his own ads accusing his opponents of attacking his wife's character. Republicans, for their part, are airing ads accusing Franken of not being "fit for office" because of his past satirical writings, including a guest column for Playboy that was allegedly demeaning toward women.
Trailing in North Carolina, Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) launched a second round of ads last weekend questioning whether state Sen. Kay Hagan (D) supported a "godless" agenda because Hagan attended a fundraiser at the Boston home of a board member for a group espousing atheist views. Hagan has responded with ads forcefully declaring her Christianity and accusing Dole of "bearing false witness."
LOAD-DATE: November 4, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Eric Miller -- Reuters; Sen. Norm Coleman, left, and Democrat Al Franken have waged a spirited battle in Minnesota, with Dean Barkley, center, mounting a third-party campaign.
IMAGE; Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) trails in North Carolina despite late aggressive ads.
IMAGE; State Sen. Kay Hagan (D) has responded forcefully against Dole.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
November 4, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
Running In Place: The Predictable Election
BYLINE: Robert G. Kaiser; Washington Post Staff Writer
Election Day at last -- the never-ending campaign is finally over. Now we wait anxiously for the result, wondering whose campaign strategy, whose tactics, whose television commercials and whose organization has won the prize.
That's one way to look at it -- arguably, the wrong way. What if all the hubbub, the $2.4 billion spent, was a waste of time and money? Maybe the outcome was predictable in August -- or even earlier.
On Aug. 22, three days before the Democratic National Convention, the Washington Post-ABC poll said Barack Obama led John McCain by 49 to 45 percent among likely voters.
That was what the pollsters call "a snapshot," not a prediction. But at about the same time, in late August, Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University political science professor, made his quadrennial prediction of the November result using a mathematical formula he has applied to every presidential general election since 1952: Obama 54.3, McCain 45.7. (Abramowitz's formula calculates the share of the vote to be won by the two major-party candidates only.) The final Post-ABC poll, released last evening, put Obama ahead of McCain by 53 to 44 percent.
Now here's the eerie part: Abramowitz's formula appears to really work. Only the 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore flummoxed Abramowitz, who predicted that Gore would win. Of course, Gore did win the most votes in 2000, but he got less of the major-party popular vote than Abramowitz predicted. Still his prediction (calculated months before the election) was more accurate than nearly all the final national polls published on the eve of the voting.
"The effects of campaigns are usually at the margins," Abramowitz says. "In a really close election they can make a difference if one campaign is much better than the other." The Bush campaign was a lot better than the Gore campaign in 2000, and that may have mattered. Typically, Abramowitz observes, the two campaigns "cancel each other out."
Abramowitz's formula for predicting elections combines three factors: how long the incumbent party has been in power, how highly the incumbent president is rated by the public, and how well the U.S. economy did in the second quarter of the election year. Its one novel element is Abramowitz's conviction that the natural pendulum of politics produces a "time for a change" factor that becomes influential as soon as a party has had two terms in the White House.
This is heresy to believers in traditional presidential politicking, as perpetuated by political consultants and the media, including this news organization. In that model, the campaign is waged to win the votes of a body of swing voters who can be persuaded to vote, say, for a Republican one year and a Democrat four years later, since most Americans stick religiously to their party's candidates. The media presume these swing voters are susceptible to the usual campaign tactics and will make rational choices.
Not all political scientists believe in formulas such as Abramowitz's, but they share a strong consensus that politicians and the journalists who cover them over-interpret campaigns and undervalue "the long-term fundamentals," in the words of Princeton University's Larry Bartels. The most important of these is the state of the economy.
Another significant one is "party identification," which has shifted dramatically in the Democrats' favor. In 2003, according to a Pew poll, 42 percent of voters identified themselves as Republicans or said they leaned that way, and 44 percent said they were Democrats or Democratic leaners. By last year those numbers were 36 for the Republicans and 50 for the Democrats.
A related fundamental is the popularity and longevity of the incumbent president. At the end of his second term, President Bush has lower approval ratings than any modern president but Richard M. Nixon.
The political scientists look for patterns over time, and journalists hunt and hope for news. The two groups have, says Bartels, a "fundamental conflict of interest." The professors' incentive "is to assume and convince people that in some relevant way, this year will be the same as past years have been. So we want to downplay the idiosyncratic elements of this year. Journalists' big professional incentive is to make people think that what happens today is really consequential, and 'Hey, you have to get up in the morning and read The Washington Post to see what is important.' "
These political scientists base their analyses on one bedrock belief: "The election is a referendum on the incumbent president," as Abramowitz puts it, and "it doesn't really matter who the candidate is." When times are bad, the party of the sitting president gets the blame, and when times are good, that party gets the benefit.
In 2008, times have been really bad. Never in the history of polling have so many Americans felt that the country is "off on the wrong track" -- 90 percent, according to the latest Post poll. That's the highest it has been this year, but the number was high in January, too -- 77 percent then. Similarly, voters have perceived a bad economy all year long. Months before the financial crisis and stock market crash, voters ranked the economy as the most important issue.
The idea that a professor using a formula can accurately foresee an election result seems designed to drive political junkies crazy. How could predicting an election be so simple? But it works. Months ago Abramowitz said Obama would win nearly 55 percent of the votes cast for the two major candidates. (To check the accuracy of the prediction tomorrow, add up the total of votes cast for Obama and McCain, and divide that total into the number cast for Obama. It may take a few days to get really complete numbers.)
Okay, it's time to take a deep breath. Obviously, this is Election Day; we won't know what happens until later tonight at the earliest. Tomorrow this story could qualify for inclusion in an anthology of embarrassing media goofs. As Yogi Berra famously warned, it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
And even if the election turns out precisely as Abramowitz and the Post poll suggest (they are just one percentage point apart, well within the margin of error for such calculations), that will only demonstrate the predictability of campaigns, not their irrelevance. This is a curiosity worth pondering: Even if campaigns don't have a lot of influence on the outcomes of elections, they have a big impact on the country, and on politics generally.
"Saying that campaigns don't matter," says Samuel Popkin of the University of California at San Diego, "is like saying, 'Do we have to have the wedding?' But that's how the families get to know each other." In other words, there's more to a campaign that its outcome.
Campaigns change the country and its politics. They introduce new players (Obama and Sarah Palin, for example). They draw the country's attention, for a few months, to questions of politics and leadership that are largely ignored between presidential campaigns. "Campaigns create our collective memories," says Popkin. "They give people a stake in the election and give some candidates time to build up public understanding of what they are like as people."
Most significant, perhaps, campaigns establish politicians' legitimacy and strength. Ronald Reagan was a much more powerful president, says Popkin, because he won the presidency by an unexpected landslide. The other participants in the system had to adjust to his obvious political strength.
UCLA's Lynn Vavreck, in her forthcoming book "The Message Matters," elaborates on Abramowitz's observation that campaigns have an impact "at the margins." She cites three cases in which a candidate should and could have won if he had conducted a better campaign: Nixon in 1960, Hubert H. Humphrey in 1968 and Al Gore in 2000. All three were the beneficiaries of strong economies, and all three failed to exploit that fact effectively in their campaigns and lost the prize of a third term for their parties.
But she found no examples of a party winning a third term in bad economic times. That of course was John McCain's challenge this year. "It could just be impossible" to win in such circumstances, she said. McCain might have been more successful if he had seized on issues other than the economy, she said, but "he did have the deck stacked against him."
Which is just what Alan Abramowitz's formula said in August.
LOAD-DATE: November 4, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Associated Press State & Local Wire
November 4, 2008 Tuesday 1:23 AM GMT
Obama, McCain both promise change on election eve
Barack Obama radiated confidence and John McCain displayed the grit of an underdog Monday as the presidential rivals reached for the finish line of a two-year marathon with a burst of campaigning across battlegrounds from the Atlantic Coast to Arizona.
"We are one day away from change in America," said Obama, a Democrat seeking to become the first black president a dream not nearly as distant on election eve as it once was.
McCain, too, promised to turn the page of the era of George W. Bush, and he warned about his opponent's intentions. "Sen. Obama is in the far left lane" of politics, he said. "He's more liberal than a guy who calls himself a Socialist and that's not easy."
Republican running mate Sarah Palin was even more pointed as she campaigned in Ohio. "Now is not the time to experiment with socialism," she said. "Our opponent's plan is just for bigger government."
Late-season attacks aside, Obama led in virtually all the pre-election polls in a race where economic concerns dominated and the war in Iraq was pushed however temporarily into the background.
While the overall number of early votes was unknown, statistics showed more than 29 million ballots cast in 30 states and suggested an advantage for Obama. Democrats voted in larger numbers than Republicans in North Carolina, Colorado, Florida and Iowa, all of which went for President Bush in 2004.
Democrats also anticipated gains in the House and in the Senate, although Republicans battled to hold their losses to a minimum and a significant number of races were rated as tossups in the campaign's final hours.
By their near-non-stop attention to states that voted Republican in 2004, both Obama and McCain acknowledged the Democrats' advantage in the presidential race.
The two rivals both began their days in Florida, a traditionally Republican state with 27 electoral votes where polls make it close.
Obama drew 9,000 or so at a rally in Jacksonville, while across the state, a crowd estimated at roughly 1,000 turned out for McCain.
The frontrunner also choked up on the campaign's final day as he told a crowd in North Carolina of the death of his grandmother from cancer. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86.
"She died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side," he said of the woman who had played a large role in his upbringing. "And so there is great joy as well as tears. I'm not going to talk about it too long because it is hard for me to talk about."
McCain and his wife issued a statement of condolence.
One day before the election, no battleground state was left unattended.
But Virginia, where no Democrat has won in 40 years, and Ohio, where no Republican president has ever lost, seemed most coveted. Together, they account for 33 electoral votes that McCain can scarcely do without.
Democratic volunteers in Maryland, a state safe for Obama, called voters in next-door Virginia, where McCain trailed in the polls. The Democratic presidential candidate's visit to Virginia during the day was his 11th since he clinched the nomination.
Unwilling to concede anything, McCain's campaign filed a lawsuit in Richmond seeking to force election officials to count late-arriving ballots from members of the armed forces overseas. No hearing was immediately scheduled.
Several hundred miles away in Ohio the state that sealed Bush's second term in 2004 voters waited as long as three hours in line to cast ballots in Columbus, part of heavily contested Franklin County. Poll workers handed out bottles of water to sustain them.
Lori Huffman, 38, a supervisor at UPS Inc., took the day off to vote early for her man, McCain. "It's exciting isn't it?" she asked, gesturing toward the long line of waiting voters.
"This is happening all over the state, from Cleveland to Dayton," said Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat trying to deliver his state to Obama.
Obama hoped so, after more than a year building an elaborate get-out-the-vote operation, first for the primary campaign, now for the general election.
The Democrat flew from Florida to North Carolina to Virginia, all states that went Republican in 2004, before heading home to Chicago on Election Eve.
Twenty-one months after he launched his campaign, he allowed, "You know. I feel pretty peaceful ... I gotta say."
On a syndicated radio program, the Russ Parr Morning Show, he said, "The question is going to be who wants it more," he added. "And I hope that our supporters want it bad, because I think the country needs it."
If wanting it were all that mattered, the race would be a toss-up.
McCain, behind in the polls, set out on a grueling run through several traditionally Republican states that he has failed to secure. Florida, Virginia, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada were on his itinerary, as was Pennsylvania, the only state that voted Democratic in 2004 where he still nursed hopes. His last appearance of the long day, past midnight, was a home state rally in Prescott, Ariz. Obama has been running television commercials in Arizona in the campaign's final days.
The surrogate campaigners included Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democrats and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the Republicans. Both lost races for their party's presidential nomination earlier in the year, and both could be expected to try again if their ticket loses the White House.
Not so, President Bush.
Deeply unpopular, the man who won the White House twice was out of public view, an effort to help McCain.
Palin was racing through five Bush states Monday Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada in an effort to boost conservative turnout for McCain. The Alaska governor has been a popular draw for many GOP base voters, and already, there was speculation about a future national campaign should Republicans lose in 2008.
Joe Biden, Obama's running mate, campaigned in Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania. "We are on the cusp of a new brand of leadership," he assured supporters.
Biden didn't say so, but he was as close to guaranteed a victory as any politician in America. Whatever the fate of the Democratic presidential ticket, he was heavily favored to win a new Senate term from Delaware on Tuesday.
Eds: Espo reported from Washington. AP writers Nedra Pickler in Jacksonville, Fla., Meghan Barr in Columbus, Ohio, Joe Milica from Lakewood, Ohio, Christopher Clark in Lee's Summit, Mo., and Kristen Wyatt in Denver contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: November 4, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire
Copyright 2008 Associated Press
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
November 3, 2008 Monday
Final Edition
Obama: 'Feeling good' about chances as election nears;
80,000 at Cleveland rally; he'll finish up in three states, including Virginia, today
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-1
Barack Obama says he thinks he might be headed for a win tomorrow night.
The Democratic presidential candidate told Cleveland voters yesterday that "the past couple of days I've just been feeling good."
He says having his wife and daughters with him on the campaign trail and the crowds that he's been seeing are encouraging.
"You start thinking maybe we might be able to win an election on November 4," the Illinois senator said.
He spoke after being introduced by singer Bruce Springsteen, who warmed up a crowd of 80,000 that gathered after the Cleveland Browns football game.
Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, was similarly upbeat yesterday, saying the Democrat has many routes to victory.
Plouffe told "Fox News Sunday" that Obama has expanded the electoral map by aggressively campaigning in traditional Republican states such as Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. Plouffe said he did not want to wake up on Election Day with only one way to win.
Along with discussing the issues, Obama told a crowd in Columbus, Ohio, that he represented the politics of hope.
"Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that there are better days ahead," the Illinois senator said. "If we're willing to work for it. If we're willing to shed our fears. If we're willing to reach deep down inside ourselves when we're tired, and come back fighting harder.
"Don't believe for a second this election is over. Don't think for a minute that power concedes without a fight. We have to work like our future depends on it in these last few days, because it does," he said.
"Go vote right now," Obama urged from the Ohio Statehouse steps, reminding people of a nearby polling location where they could cast ballots by sunset. "Do not delay because we have work to do." A show of hands found most in the crowd already had.
With just two days to go, most national polls show Obama ahead of McCain.
Polls show the six closest states are Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio. All were won by President Bush and made competitive by Obama's record-shattering fundraising. The campaigns also are running aggressive ground games elsewhere, including Iowa, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia.
Obama plans visits to Florida, North Carolina and Virginia today.
The Obama campaign's chief strategist, David Axelrod, said he expected Pennsylvania to play an important role in the election.
"I agree that it would be a key," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "I think it's a state that we both worked very hard to win.
Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democrats' vice presidential candidate, campaigned in Florida.
He discussed the economic situation in Tallahassee, the first of three stops in the state.
Also yesterday, the Obama campaign released its latest ad highlighting Vice President Dick Cheney's backing of McCain.
The ad boasts of Obama's recent endorsements from billionaire investor Warren Buffett and former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, then cuts to video showing Cheney announcing his support for McCain. Cheney has some of the lowest approval ratings of any politician.
LOAD-DATE: November 7, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
November 3, 2008 Monday
Final Edition
McCain: Gaining momentum, he says at Pennsylvania stop;
He presses argument that foe is too liberal, wrong on taxes, would cut defense spending
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-1
Republican John McCain is telling voters in Pennsylvania that his campaign has momentum.
Campaigning yesterday in Wallingford, near Philadelphia, McCain told 1,500 cheering supporters he's been in a lot of campaigns and knows the momentum is there. He said he's a few points down but "the Mac is back."
McCain's strategists believe that, polls to the contrary, Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes remain up for grabs.
McCain made his oft-repeated argument that Obama is too liberal for the country and wants a tax policy that redistributes wealth rather than creates riches. Democrats are prepared to cut the defense budget even as the country is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.
Obama actually has pledged to increase defense spending and the size of the military. As for taxes, he has said he would raise taxes for those earning more than $250,000 a year and would seek a tax cut for 95 percent of U.S. taxpayers.
McCain also was campaigning in Scranton, Pa., before heading for events in New Hampshire and Florida.
He was planning another Pennsylvania rally today, outside Pittsburgh.
McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, campaigned yesterday in another must-win state. She offered audiences in Canton and Marietta, Ohio, her standard speech, stressing themes of patriotism and fiscal responsibility.
"John and I have better idea: Let's not retreat from wars that are almost won and let's not gut the defense budget at a time of conflict and obvious danger," Palin said.
Palin told a crowd of more than 3,000 at a field house in Canton that she and McCain are committed to cutting taxes and limiting the size of government. She said Obama favors bigger government and has lowered the income threshold for those considered middle class and deserving of a tax cut from $250,000 to $120,000.
Palin said Obama also has proposed $1 trillion in new spending without saying where the money would come from.
Underscoring the state's importance to McCain's chances, Palin was to campaign today in the traditionally Democratic Cleveland area.
Polls have shown Obama with a slight lead or neck-and-neck with McCain in Ohio, which offers 20 electoral votes.
McCain and the Republican National Committee dramatically ramped up their spending in the campaign's final days and now are matching Obama ad for ad, if not exceeding him, in key battleground markets in states such as Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
After months of planning, the Republican Party launched the last stage of its vaunted "72-hour program," when volunteers descend on competitive states for the final stretch. Democrats unleashed their "persuasion army" of backers scouring their own backyards to encourage people to back Obama in the campaign's waning hours.
The RNC rolled out battleground phone calls that include Hillary Rodham Clinton's criticism of Obama during the Democratic primary. She is heard saying: "In the White House, there is no time for speeches and on-the-job training. Sen. McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign, and Sen. Obama will bring a speech that he gave in 2002."
Other callers were highlighting the information reported over the weekend about Obama's aunt living in the country illegally.
LOAD-DATE: November 7, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 3, 2008 Monday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Osama's good laugh
Somewhere out there, probably deep in a cave along the Afghan-Pakistani border, Osama bin Laden is laughing. He is having a great belly laugh and rubbing his hands together. Pirate chieftains in Somalia, Indonesia and elsewhere are also laughing and rubbing their hands together. What do they have to laugh and be happy about?
American disunity. They must be enjoying every minute of seeing people lined up, left and right, screaming garbage at each other. They realize they don't need to attack us now; we're tearing ourselves apart from within. This is looking more and more like their ultimate dream: America's economy is falling apart, joblessness is soaring, more Americans are getting sick from poor health care, our education system is a mess, we keep allowing illegal aliens and drugs into our country, we keep talking democracy to other countries while we slam them if they don't elect people we like, and our infrastructure is falling apart. Yet what are they seeing on TV, the Internet and radio?
People complaining about how short-tempered and old John McCain is and how inexperienced Barack Obama is, not to mention his religious beliefs.
They've got to be sitting back there in their hideouts enjoying every minute of this. They are seeing what looks like the seeds of America falling completely apart -- and that the American people don't even recognize it. Nope, Americans would rather shout and scream ridiculous accusations at the presidential and vice presidential candidates and ignore the issues that are tearing the country apart.
What once made America strong -- our unity, despite all our differences -- is gone. We've played right into international terrorism and piracy's hands. And they didn't even have to lift a finger.
Mark A. Kover
Virginia Beach
Civics comes to life
I sit in civics class three days a week and I wonder, what will happen once our president is elected? I listen to everything my family says. Different comments come from my mom and my dad's side of the family, and from the kids at school.
But then I think, if I could vote, who would I vote for? I listen to all the commercials, ads on the radio, I read the paper, watch debates, and I think long and hard about it. But my question is: How can kids make up their own minds with all of these comments being made? Is that how it is for adults?
Are they having their minds made up for them by other people? I hope when they go to vote, they think about all the facts and decide for themselves and are not influenced by others. My life, my best friend's life and their lives are decided by them. Think about what's right for the kids, what's right for your fellow citizens and think about what's right for you. Think.
Rachel Salasky
Virginia Beach
The better of two choices
When this presidential campaign between McCain and Obama began, I believed we had two good candidates, either of whom I could vote for. McCain is a strong man, and smart enough. Obama is a smart man, and strong enough.
As a conservative, I lean strongly to McCain, especially with the near certainty of a heavily Democratic Congress. At the same time, eight years of Republican rejection of ideas and data in favor of a disastrous embrace of rigid ideology should earn them, as a friend put it well, "time in the penalty box."
During the campaign I have been both impressed and dismayed by both candidates, and I remain convinced that either could be a good president. For me, the deciding factor so far has been McCain's decision to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate. I disliked but understood his decision to make nice with ideologues in the GOP. But when he chose as his prospective VP, with all that implies, a person who is essentially clueless about the economic and national security issues facing our nation, he demonstrated a capacity for reckless decisions that scares me. That will probably outweigh my profound admiration for his personal and political courage and my preference for his conservative approach to policy issues.
Barack Obama's emotional maturity and first-rate intellect will, probably, outweigh for me his thin resume and the danger of liberal, single-party government. It's a tough choice between the two candidates, and one to be thankful for. Democracy is not for sissies.
Perry Miles
Norfolk
Reckless judgment
Barack Obama says he was only eight years old when Bill Ayers and the Weathermen wreaked havoc in our country. He's right; he was just a young pup. But what the country wants to know is why, in his 40s, after a fine education at Columbia and Harvard, and after knowing the background of this radical leftist, member of Students for Democratic Society, New Left and Weather Underground, a domestic terrorist group, did Obama meet with, associate with and even attend a "coffee" that Ayers hosted before Obama's Senate campaign?
We can excuse Obama for his youth and not knowing about Ayers and the pain he and the Weathermen inflicted around the country. But I can't forgive him for poor decisionmaking as a well-educated adult.
Of course, his changing positions on the Cuban trade embargo, Rev. Wright, marijuana decriminalization, taking money from unions, campaign funding (refusing public financing after saying he would if the GOP did), immigration and drilling for oil, have made my decision easier. It's clear to me that his change is not the type of change we need in this country. These issues individually and collectively show me why Obama isn't ready for the presidency.
Dan Steber
Virginia Beach
Peter Principle campaign
We are lucky this year that both of these fine presidential candidates will continue to serve us after the election, one in the Capitol and one in the White House. One candidate's strength is in health and economic reforms most affected by the Senate, while the other is uniquely prepared to be commander in chief. By putting each candidate in the place that suits his strength, we will have the best of both worlds.
Peggy Carnes
Virginia Beach
Election eve appeal
As we approach Election Day, I can only hope that all of us use our reasoning powers and common sense rather than our preconceived notions, ignorance, seldom-reviewed principles, misconceptions or blindly accepted interpretations beamed to us by others. As Socrates is alleged to have said, "Question everything."
Voting with the loyalties of the past will most likely result in more of the same or worse. I'm not sure I or my family can deal with more of the same, and I know the worse will be more challenging.
If the reason we are voting can be reduced to a phrase on a bumper sticker, we probably haven't looked into the issue with sufficient rigor. No serious topic is that simple. If we think that it is, we are the problem. We must do the work of citizens who have the right to vote. We must do our homework.
Failure to do so has very severe consequences, and they will be partially our fault.
The principles that most of us have used to make our decisions have been betrayed by both parties. The most intense issues of the current campaigns, the slanderous attacks, the inconsequential diversions, are likely to find themselves on the trash pile by Nov. 5.
Please, let us use the intelligence, reasoning powers and common sense we've been given.
Bill Reed
Virginia Beach
LOAD-DATE: November 3, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 3, 2008 Monday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Businesses await Tuesday with hope and fear
BYLINE: CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
By Christopher S. Rugaber
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON
Battered by the financial meltdown, America's business community is anxiously calculating how Tuesday's presidential election will affect it.
Energy, pharmaceutical and telecommunications companies could face tax and other policy changes, no matter who wins the White House. The outcome also could determine how well alternative energy developers, generic biotechnology companies, stem cell researchers and others fare.
Labor unions have put major resources behind Sen. Barack Obama and could wind up a big winner if the Democrat takes the White House. Nuclear power and the coal industry would get a boost if Republican Sen. John McCain prevails. Obama promises to raise corporate tax rates and income taxes on families making over $250,000; McCain promises to cut corporate taxes and extend all of President Bush's tax cuts.
A look at how some could fare:
Unions
With Obama in office and an expected larger Democratic majority on Capitol Hill, unions could achieve their top goal of making it easier for workers to organize. Labor wants to win passage of a measure that would require companies to recognize unions once a majority of employees sign cards expressing support.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposes the bill. Steven Law, the group's general counsel, said the elimination of secret ballot votes "creates tremendous incentives for intimidation and harassment." But Bill Samuel, director of government affairs at the AFL-CIO, says the group sees it "as a way to strengthen the middle class," by enabling more workers to push for higher wages and benefits.
Obama has endorsed the measure; McCain opposes it.
Alternative energy and nuclear power
Both candidates back expanded use of alternatives such as solar and wind power - through greater spending in Obama's case and tax credits in McCain's.
Obama proposes spending $150 billion over 10 years to speed the development of plug-in hybrid cars and "commercial-scale" renewable energy, among other goals.
McCain favors the construction of 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 and spending $2 billion annually in support of "clean coal."
While McCain has been a critic of government support for ethanol, most analysts think congressional support for the alternative fuel would enable it to survive under a McCain administration.
Stem cell research
Few sectors have more to gain on Election Day than the nation's fledgling stem cell companies, which long have bemoaned the administration's policy limiting federal money for embryonic stem cell research. Bush believes the research is immoral because the process of culling the stem cells kills the embryo.
Both Obama and McCain support federal spending on stem cell research and could move to overturn current restrictions.
Industry executives say the policy change would shore up investor confidence in stem cell developers.
"It will relieve a lot of uncertainty among the investment community that we are going to become an outlaw industry," said Richard Garr, chief executive of Neuralstem Inc.
Biotech generics
Both candidates have endorsed creating a pathway for generic biotech drugs, a long-sought goal for generic drug companies such as Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and Mylan Inc.
Unlike traditional chemical drugs, biotech companies such as Amgen Inc. and Genentech Inc. face no generic competition in the United States because the Food and Drug Administration lacks authority to approve copies of biotech medicines. That is because biotech drugs, which are made from living cells or bacteria, are more complicated to manufacture than chemical drugs.
Both campaigns have praised generic drugs as a tool to lower health care costs.
"We know that expanding the use of generics and eliminating barriers to that goal must be a centerpoint of any health reform effort," said Dora Hughes, a health care adviser for Obama, at a recent industry conference.
In politics, of course, not everyone is a winner. Some possible losers include:
Defense contractors
After years of record Pentagon budgets, defense companies such as Lockheed Martin Corp. and Raytheon Co. face the prospect of slowing military spending.
Big budget deficits are projected to worsen, due in part to the financial bailout package approved by Congress. Defense spending will become a prime target for cuts. That could mean trouble for over-budget programs such as the Army's $200 billion Future Combat Systems, which aims to outfit units with high-tech weapons and communications tools.
Both candidates also want to overhaul the contracting process, especially after some high-profile flops such as the Air Force's attempt to award a $35 billion contract for new aerial refueling planes over the past seven years.
McCain has promoted his role in spiking an earlier Boeing Co. contract for the planes. Obama, meanwhile, has suggested that the Pentagon's effort to build a missile defense shield for the United States and its allies could be scaled back.
Oil companies
Companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. are likely to face higher taxes under a President Obama, who supports a windfall profits tax.
The two companies did not help their cause by reporting record profits in late October. Still, as oil prices fall, profits are likely to follow suit.
Even if a windfall profit tax is not imposed, at least eight different taxes and fees could be slapped on the cash-rich industry by a Democratic Congress looking for extra revenue, said Kevin Book, an energy analyst at FBR Capital Markets. They include adopting a surtax on oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico and eliminating a 2 percent tax cut included in recent legislation, Book said.
On the other hand, oil companies could profit if McCain wins, since he is a big champion of offshore drilling.
Pharmaceuticals
No matter which candidate wins the White House, the largest drugmakers, such as Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co. Inc., will struggle to defend lucrative government programs. That includes the Medicare drug benefit, which pays for medications taken by 47 million older people and which provided much-needed revenue to the drug industry last year.
Dozens of insurers now separately negotiate prices with pharmaceutical makers; the government reimburses insurers for the final cost. Though the program has come in under budget, most Democrats say greater savings could be had by letting the government directly negotiate prices with drugmakers.
Obama has pledged to take up the effort, arguing that savings could total up to $30 billion. McCain also supports giving the government power to negotiate prices, but only at the request of individual insurers.
Telecommunications
Big telecommunications carriers have forged many deals in the past eight years, such as Verizon Wireless' $28 billion purchase of Alltel Corp., approved with conditions by the Justice Department on Thursday.
Such deals will likely face tougher antitrust scrutiny under either an Obama or McCain administration, analysts say.
In fact, some of the more contentious industry deals in recent years - including the merger of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., and Google Inc.'s acquisition of DoubleClick Inc. - might not have been approved under either candidate, says Paul Gallant, a telecom analyst at Stanford Washington Research Group.
LOAD-DATE: November 3, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 3, 2008 Monday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
By Nedra Pickler, Liz Sidoti and Jim Kuhnhenn
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio
John McCain and Barack Obama uncorked massive get-out-the-vote operations in more than a dozen battleground states Sunday, millions of telephone calls, mailings and door-knockings in a frenzied, fitting climax to a record-shattering $1 billion campaign. Together, they'll spend about $8 per presidential vote.
With just two days to go, most national polls show Obama ahead of McCain. State surveys suggest the Democrat's path to the requisite 270 electoral votes - and perhaps far beyond - is much easier to navigate than McCain's.
Obama exuded confidence.
"The last couple of days, I've been just feeling good," he told 80,000 gathered to hear him - and singer Bruce Springsteen - in Cleveland. "The crowds seem to grow and everybody's got a smile on their face. You start thinking that maybe we might be able to win an election on November 4th."
In Peterborough, N.H., McCain held his final town hall-style event in the state that put him on the national map in 2000 and launched his GOP primary comeback eight years later.
"I come to the people of New Hampshire to ask them to let me go on one more mission," said McCain, who is looking for an upset victory against Obama.
Polls show the six closest states are Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio. All were won by Bush and made competitive by Obama's record-shattering fundraising. The campaigns also are running aggressive ground games elsewhere, including Iowa, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia.
All that's left now for the candidates is to make sure people vote Tuesday - if they haven't already.
Indeed, Election Day is becoming a misnomer. About 27 million absentee and early votes were cast in 30 states as of Saturday night, more than ever. Democrats outnumbered Republicans in pre-Election Day voting in key states.
That has Democrats - and even some Republicans - privately questioning whether McCain can overtake Obama, even if GOP loyalists turn out in droves on Tuesday. Obama may already have too big of a head start in critical states like Nevada and Iowa, which Bush won four years ago.
As the campaign closes, voters were being inundated with a crush of television ads and automated phone calls.
In a new TV ad, Obama highlighted Vice President Dick Cheney's support for McCain. The ad features Cheney, an unpopular figure among many in the public, at an event Saturday in Wyoming, saying: "I'm delighted to support John McCain."
Not to be outdone, the Republican National Committee rolled out battleground phone calls that include Hillary Rodham Clinton's criticism of Obama during the Democratic primary. She is heard saying: "In the White House, there is no time for speeches and on-the-job training. Sen. McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign, and Sen. Obama will bring a speech that he gave in 2002." A Clinton spokeswoman said she disapproves of the ad.
Another phone call to Pennsylvania and Ohio voters takes Obama's words about coal-burning technology out of context and claims he will "bankrupt the coal industry."
The Pennsylvania GOP also unveiled a TV ad featuring Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, declaring "God damn America!" in a sermon .
Obama and McCain campaigned on each other's turf Sunday. Obama was in Ohio, a bellwether state Bush won four years ago and where polls show Obama tied or winning. McCain visited Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, states won by Democrat John Kerry in 2004. He trails in both.
McCain and the Republican National Committee dramatically ramped up their spending in the campaign's final days and now are matching Obama ad for ad, if not exceeding him, in key battleground markets in states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Together, the two presidential candidates have amassed nearly $1 billion - a stratospheric number in a campaign of record-shattering money numbers. Depending on turnout, $1 billion means nearly $8 for every presidential vote, compared with $5.50 in 2004.
And that's just McCain and Obama. All the presidential candidates in the 2007- 08 contest took in $1.55 billion, nearly twice the amount collected by candidates in 2004 and three times the amount from 2000. The total includes fundraising for the primaries as well as the general election.
Using all that cash, the candidates have traveled more miles, employed more workers and advertised more than ever.
After months of planning, the Republican Party launched the last stage of its vaunted "72-hour program," when volunteers descend on competitive states for the final stretch. Democrats unleashed their "persuasion army" of backers scouring their own backyards to encourage people to back Obama in the campaign's waning hours.
The RNC reported making 5.4 million voter contacts last week, compared with 1.9 million in the same week in 2004, and it says its volume has steadily increased since October began. Overall, it says 26 million voters have been contacted by volunteers over four months. On Saturday alone, the RNC said, an estimated 3 million voters were contacted by phone or in person.
McCain planned visits to battlegrounds Florida, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada today. A repeat trip to Pennsylvania also was slated before McCain returns home to Arizona.
Obama planned visits to Virginia, North Carolina and Florida today and a quick stop in Indiana on Tuesday morning.
record numbers
About 27 million absentee and early votes were cast in 30 states as of Saturday night. the cost of a vote
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama have amassed nearly $1 billion. Depending on turnout, that's about $8 for every presidential vote.
LOAD-DATE: November 3, 2008
GRAPHIC: stephan savoia | the associated press Sen. John McCain makes a point at a rally in Wallingford, Pa., on Sunday. McCain plans to visit several battleground states today, including Florida and Pennsylvania. terry gilliam | the associated press Sen. Barack Obama speaks Sunday at a rally in Columbus, Ohio. Obama planned visits to Virginia, North Carolina and Florida today.
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The Washington Post
November 3, 2008 Monday
Suburban Edition
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
'A BIG HILL TO CLIMB'
McCain Fans in Pa. Express Hope
WALLINGFORD, Pa. --The men and women who stood for hours in the Strath Haven High School gym here Sunday said they view John McCain's election as critical, though they remain unsure he will emerge victorious Tuesday.
"We're cautiously optimistic, but we're also realistic. We know we have a big hill to climb," said Marie Furey, 67, a retired Philadelphia schoolteacher.
Furey said she is backing McCain because "I'm a Republican, have been for many years," while her two children, who are in their mid-30s, are backing Barack Obama in part, she said, because they're worried about McCain running mate Sarah Palin.
"I think there are some issues, beyond her energy," she said, choosing her words carefully. "Others perceive her to be -- not experienced. It's a small concern for me. It's a large concern for my children."
But Jeff Bater, 55, who works on real estate development for a Middle Eastern private equity group, said he sees Palin as "a breath of fresh air" and is encouraged by the recent tightening in the polls in states such as Pennsylvania.
"I hope he pulls it out because the election is going to affect us for the next 10 to 15 years, easily," Bater said, adding that he thinks McCain has the experience to handle the international and domestic crises now faced by the United States. "It even affects my guys in Kuwait. Even though they're sitting on piles of oil, what happens here affects everybody."
McCain's wife, Cindy, spoke to those concerns when she introduced her husband, unveiling a new pitch for the GOP standard-bearer. "He's not a man for all times, but he's definitely a man for these times," she said, sparking a massive round of cheers.
One member of the audience even had a new moniker for McCain's rival, rather than the "Marxist" and "socialist" labels that have cropped up in rallies. When the senator from Arizona started criticizing Obama for not having faced international challenges in the past, the man shouted, "Obama's a marshmallow!"
-- Juliet Eilperin
EXPLOITING GOP FISSURES
Obama Ad Stars Cheney and Palin
A day after Vice President Cheney spoke in support of the Republican presidential ticket, Barack Obama's campaign sought Sunday to capitalize on divisions within the GOP, producing a television ad that ties the McCain-Palin ticket to the deeply unpopular vice president while associating the Democrat with Colin Powell, the respected former secretary of state.
The ad also seeks to capitalize on growing doubts about the Republican vice presidential candidate.
"Delighted," which the Obama campaign says will air starting Monday on national cable TV, once again emphasized Obama's long-standing position that a John McCain administration would represent a continuation of Bush administration economic and national security policies.
"Barack Obama. Endorsed by Warren Buffett and Colin Powell. And John McCain's latest endorsement?" the announcer in the spot says, as the ad cuts to video of the vice president at a GOP event in Wyoming.
Cheney is seen saying: "I'm delighted to support John McCain and . . . I'm pleased that he's chosen a running mate with executive talent, toughness and common sense, our next vice president, Sarah Palin."
The announcer's conclusion: "And that's not the change we need."
This is the second time in a week that she has starred in an Obama-Biden ad -- a sign the campaign is not only no longer afraid of a backlash for attacking her but now sees her as a wedge to use against McCain.
-- Garance Franke-Ruta
LOAD-DATE: November 3, 2008
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The Washington Post
November 3, 2008 Monday
Met 2 Edition
A Positively Negative Home Stretch;
McCain, Obama Break Tradition By Staying On the Attack
BYLINE: Shailagh Murray, Juliet Eilperin and Robert Barnes; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
The waning hours of the longest presidential campaign in history elicited a fresh round of stinging attacks from Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain and their supporters on Sunday, a departure from the positive messages that candidates normally revert to before an election.
The two candidates kept swinging at each other as their campaigns focused on a handful of states that will determine the election. Obama cut an ad that used Vice President Cheney's endorsement of McCain to reinforce his central argument that his rival represents a third term of the unpopular Bush administration.
Republicans in Pennsylvania brought back the controversial comments of Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., despite McCain's admonition that he should not be used as a political weapon, and the campaign unleashed robo-calls that employed the withering dismissal that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made of Obama's experience when the two were competing against each other in the Democratic primaries.
McCain adviser Charlie Black said his candidate would have preferred that the Pennsylvania GOP not air the ad using Wright's controversial anti-American statements. But "as McCain said back in the spring, he can't be the referee of every ad," Black said.
Ending a campaign on a positive note, said Republican strategist Scott Reed, "may be part of the old way, but this is unlike any campaign we've ever seen. There is such a small slice of undecided out there, I think both sides are going to finish the campaign really going after them."
Those voters, according to polls, represent McCain's last, best hope. But his campaign manager, Rick Davis, made the rounds of the talk shows to forcefully rebut pollsters and pundits uniformly predicting an Obama victory. "I think what we're in for is a slam-bang finish," Davis said on "Fox News Sunday." "I mean, it's going to be wild. . . . John McCain may be the greatest closer politician of all time."
He will need to be. Even Davis acknowledged that McCain will probably need to walk a tightrope to put together enough states to eke out the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. To that end, McCain campaigned in two states leaning toward Obama, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, that he hopes will provide part of the solution to that puzzle.
Obama's campaign architects said their sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation and months of organizing give the senator from Illinois multiple paths to victory. "Our number one strategic goal was to have a big playing field," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said on the same morning show. "We did not want to wake up on the morning of November 4 waiting for one state. We wanted a lot of different ways to win this election."
The closing days' schedules served as a guide to the states that will loom large on the networks' maps Tuesday night: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada.
Obama spent the entire day in Ohio, where voters have been going to the polls for weeks and a victory would be a back-breaker for his Republican rival. "Go vote right now," he told supporters at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, and his campaign aides expressed confidence that they are better organized than any Democrat in years to deliver the vote.
The Democratic nominee played to huge crowds in Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, where he and his family were introduced by musician Bruce Springsteen. Campaign officials are confident that their ground game here is far more potent than the organization that Sen. John F. Kerry fielded four years ago, when he lost Ohio to President Bush by 51 percent to 49 percent. In 2000, Bush beat Al Gore by four percentage points.
As the electoral map shrinks in these final hours, Ohio has become a must-win for McCain. But if Obama succeeds here, it will avenge not only the Kerry and Gore defeats but also his loss to Clinton during the primary, a defeat that underscored Obama's struggles with working-class white voters.
With a few hours left, Obama's closing addresses feature a blistering final assault on McCain.
He said Cheney's endorsement in Laramie, Wyo., on Saturday was evidence that a McCain presidency would mean the perpetuation of the Bush administration.
"Yesterday, Dick Cheney came out of his undisclosed location and hit the campaign trail. He said that he is, and I quote, 'delighted to support John McCain,' " Obama told the crowd in Columbus. When he was repeating his lines later in Cleveland, rain started to fall.
"You notice what happened when I started talking about Dick Cheney," Obama said with a chuckle. "But a new day is dawning. Sunshine is on the way."
But Obama's schedule, and much of his message, speaks to a more immediate concern, getting voters to the polls on Tuesday. The campaign has been able to test its vaunted field organization during early voting, and Plouffe said "we're thrilled with what we're seeing."
Obama appeared concerned that his lead in the polls -- the Washington Post-ABC News daily tracking poll gives him an advantage of 54 percent to 43 percent, larger than many other national polls -- will inspire overconfidence in his supporters.
"Don't believe for a second this election is over. Don't think for a minute that power concedes. We have to work like our future depends on it in these last few days, because it does," he told the Cleveland crowd.
Clinton was making the case for Obama in Northern Virginia, where Obama is scheduled to campaign Monday night. "I hear that John McCain and the Republicans are trying to mislead voters and use my words against Senator Obama," Clinton said at a rally at George Mason University. "My name is Hillary Clinton, and I do not approve that message."
McCain put his faith in a battle-tested Republican get-out-the-vote effort and a defiant underdog message that acknowledged only those polls that showed the race tightening.
"My friends, the Mac is back," he told an audience in suburban Philadelphia. He also campaigned in Scranton and in New Hampshire, the state that saved his campaign during the Republican primaries. It was more than a nostalgic trip -- the state's four electoral votes could be key to McCain's strategy.
"I came to say thank you, but I came to ask for one more effort," McCain said in Peterborough. "We will disagree on a specific issue, but I will put my country first, and I will never let you down."
Although McCain's pitch to voters in his final days focuses primarily on the theme that he is more experienced and would manage the economy better than Obama, he has also increasingly shifted to the right in recent weeks as he courts voters in swing states.
In one of the clearest indications of that move, the candidate who once spoke repeatedly of the need to curb climate change now devotes his speeches to touting the need to boost oil and coal production, two of the biggest contributors to global warming, while campaigning in those coal-producing states.
Indeed, the one new line he unveiled Sunday -- which his aides said he would use several times during his seven-state swing in the run-up to Election Day -- was to make fun of something Obama had told a reporter, "The only thing I've said with respect to coal, I haven't been some coal booster."
Speaking before a crowd in Scranton, McCain said, "My friends, I've been a coal booster, and it's going to create jobs, and we're going to export coal to other countries and we are going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs."
Murray was traveling with the Obama campaign, Eilperin with the McCain campaign; Barnes reported from Washington. Staff writer Christian Davenport in Fairfax County contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: November 3, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post; In Scranton, Pa., John McCain seized on an Obama remark about not being a "coal booster." "My friends, I've been a coal booster," McCain said.
IMAGE; By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post; In Cleveland, Barack Obama chuckled when rain came down after he mentioned Vice President Cheney. "Sunshine is on the way," Obama said.
IMAGE; By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post; Barack Obama talks to Browns fans as he shakes hands after his speech in Cleveland. The Democratic candidate also appeared in Cincinnati and Columbus.
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The Washington Post
November 3, 2008 Monday
Suburban Edition
It's Well Past 3 a.m. Do You Remember the Election's Best Ads?
BYLINE: Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
Every two years, The Fix picks some of the best (and worst) television ads from the election season. (For the full results, you'll need to check The Fix -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/thefix -- later this week, but a little sneak peek couldn't hurt anyone, right?)
Here are a few of our favorites from the presidential candidates:
· Barack Obama, "Our Moment is Now." Borrowing footage from Obama's speech at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner late last year the ad effectively captured the idea of the senator's campaign as a movement. "America, our moment is now," Obama says in the ad as music rises and the crowd cheers. Powerful stuff.
· Hillary Rodham Clinton, "3 a.m." By far the most talked-about ad in the Democratic primary race, the ringing-phone commercial focused on the issue of crisis management and framed the choice between the experienced and steady hand of Clinton and the untested Obama. Unfortunately for Clinton, the ad was too little, too late.
· John McCain, "Celebrity." It's hard to argue that the daring ad, which sought to draw comparisons between Obama and celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, didn't work. Using images of the massive crowd Obama drew in Berlin during his midsummer European tour, McCain's campaign turned what could have been a strength for their Democratic opponent into a weakness. A brilliant piece of political jujitsu.
· Bill Richardson, "Job Interview." Give the New Mexico governor this: He's not afraid to take chances. Surrounded by better-known candidates in the Democratic primary campaign, Richardson played the role of a job interviewee; the series of ads made the point, in a humorous way, that he has a lengthy résumé and record of accomplishments. A good twist on the traditional biographical ad.
· Mike Huckabee, "Chuck Norris Approved." The breakout star of the Republican primaries (He runs marathons! He plays the bass guitar!) topped himself with this spot featuring the action star. Best line? "Chuck Norris doesn't endorse; he tells America how it's gonna be."
Murtha, Blindsided and Scrambling
Is Jack Murtha in trouble? He is sure acting like it.
The veteran House Democrat got into hot water last month when he suggested that Barack Obama may underperform in his western Pennsylvania district because it's a "racist area." Now he's pushing the political equivalent of the panic button, by calling in the Clintons to campaign for him.
Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton recorded last-minute robocalls for Murtha. And the former president will headline a rally today in Murtha's home town of Johnstown, before heading to Wilkes-Barre to help out another embattled senior Democrat, Rep. Paul Kanjorski.
Hillary Clinton was among the first to answer the SOS sent out by Murtha, cutting a $5,000 check from her HillPAC to the incumbent's campaign. All told, Murtha raised $917,000 in a 12-day period ending Saturday, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. The overwhelming majority of contributions came from the political action committees of fellow Democrats, but a few cut checks from their personal bank accounts, such as the $2,300 from Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.). Elsie Pascrell, wife of Rep. William Pascrell (D-N.J.), gave Murtha $1,000 from her personal funds.
Murtha, 76, is a decorated Vietnam War veteran who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense. One of his party's most prominent voices on military issues, he became an unlikely liberal darling when he turned against the Iraq war.
But the 17-term lawmaker is also a typical previously "safe" incumbent, utterly unprepared for the backlash over his "racist" remark. It earned him a parody on "Saturday Night Live," and Republicans promoted it as a Democratic version of conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann's infamous anti-Obama rant on MSNBC.
A late-October survey by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review showed Murtha barely leading his aggressive and well-funded Republican opponent, Bill Russell.
"I was blindsided this time. It was my own fault. I take full responsibility, and I'm worried that I waited too long to get people activated," Murtha, 76, told volunteers at his campaign headquarters last week, according to the Associated Press.
A Chance for Extra Innings
For those of you already suffering withdrawal symptoms with Election Day just around the corner, never fear. Your fix -- pun intended -- may come from Georgia.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) is locked in a tight battle with former state representative Jim Martin (D), a race that many insiders suspect could determine whether Democrats reach their goal of a filibuster-proof majority of 60 seats. The Peach State requires a true majority of at least 50.1 percent of the vote to win, and Libertarian Allen Buckley has been taking 2 to 7 percent of the vote in public polling over the past week. Chambliss has been ahead in almost every poll, but is mired in the mid- to upper 40s.
With former congressman Bob Barr (Ga.) on the Georgia ballot as the Libertarian nominee for president, some Republicans fear that Buckley could prevent Chambliss from getting to the magic number.
A runoff between the two top vote-getters would be held Dec. 2, setting up a month-long battle that would draw waves of tested (and worn-out) campaign operatives and millions of dollars in contributions.
"Boy, oh, boy," Charles Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said at the thought to reporters last week. Asked how much money he thought would flood Georgia under such a scenario, Schumer said simply, "A lot."
Republicans privately suggest Chambliss would have the upper hand in a special because the expected large African American turnout for the historical significance of Obama's campaign would be hard to replicate a month later, in a race without Obama at the top of the ticket.
Staff writer Paul Kane contributed to this column.
1 DAY: It's (almost) here! After all the waiting and anticipating, Election Day 2008 arrives in less than 24 hours. Make sure to get out and vote.
1,464 DAYS: Let the countdown to 2012 begin! We're fewer than 1,500 days away from Nov. 6, 2012.
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Calls slam Obama in coal country;
Candidates target Pennsylvania, Ohio
BYLINE: By Joseph Curl and Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
DATELINE: WALLINGFORD, Pa.
The two presidential candidates stomped into the other party's territory Sunday, with Sen. Barack Obama making a run for "red" Ohio, while Sen. John McCain battled to put "blue" Pennsylvania in his column with the aid of automated calls using Mr. Obama's own words to accuse him of planning to bankrupt the coal industry.
The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, targeted voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other coal-producing states with "robocalls" saying that "coal jobs, which are so important to our community, are in jeopardy. ... Listen to Barack Obama's plans to bankrupt the coal industry"
The call then plays an excerpt from a January interview that Mr. Obama gave the San Francisco Chronicle in which he defends his proposal for a cap-and-trade system to limit emissions of carbon dioxide by requiring power plants and others to buy the right to emit the harmful gas.
"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted," he said.
The Obama campaign denounced the RNC calls as taking his quote "wildly" out of context, saying that elsewhere in the interview, Mr. Obama calls the idea of banning coal burning "an illusion."
"The point Obama is making is that we need to transition
from coal-burning power plants built with old technology to plants built with advanced technologies - and that is exactly the action that will be incentivized under a cap-and-trade program," an Obama spokesman told ABC News.
In a town-hall meeting Sunday night in New Hampshire, where environmentalism is a strong force, Mr. McCain was asked whether he would oppose coal-burning plants that don't have carbon-sequestration technology.
"I want to tell you that I would, but I can't," he said, noting that the technology is still in its infancy and raises the cost of power. He also noted that current coal-burning plants, which are mostly old but provide half of the nation's electricity, would need to be handled differently under any climate-control rules.
The candidates and their surrogates continued their dash to the finish line Sunday, crisscrossing Ohio and Pennsylvania, both pivotal states where coal is a major industry.
In Wallingford, Pa., Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent and a longtime McCain friend, told a packed rally that the state will be pivotal. If Mr. McCain neither flips Pennsylvania nor successfully defends Ohio, he has virtually no chance of piecing together the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency on Tuesday.
"Twenty-one electoral votes - that can make up for a lot of votes," Mr. Lieberman said. "You can really turn this around."
Mr. Obama's path to the presidency, on the other hand, is far more open. Polls show the six closest states are Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio, all states won by President Bush in 2004. His aggressive ground game has virtually guaranteed a win in Iowa, where he leads by a large margin in the latest polls, as well as given him a good chance at winning New Mexico, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia.
But the Democrat warned against overconfidence at a rally in Columbus, Ohio.
"Don't believe for a second that this election is over," Mr. Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, told a crowd estimated at more than 60,000.
"We can't afford to slow down, sit back or let up for one day, one minute or one second in these last few days. ... Go vote right now Do not delay. We've got work to do," he said.
Mr. McCain didn't think the campaign was over, either.
"We're going to win Pennsylvania and we're going to win this election. I sense it and I feel it and I know it," the buoyant candidate said in Wallingford, declaring that "Mac is back" at the kickoff of an 18-hour day that won't end until after midnight in Miami.
One McCain adviser said the campaign's last internal polls put the Pennsylvania contest within the margin of error. All four independent polls at Real Clear Politics that sampled through the weekend showed Mr. McCain trailing by six or seven percentage points, although that is less than the 11-point average lead Mr. Obama held as recently as Wednesday.
Even apart from the attack over coal, the campaign took a decidedly negative turn Sunday, with the Pennsylvania Republican Party putting up an ad featuring the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whom the McCain campaign has steadfastly refused to target.
"If you think you could ever vote for Barack Obama, consider this: Obama chose as his spiritual leader, this man: Jeremiah Wright," the narrator says. The ad then cuts to Mr. Obama's longtime pastor delivering his famous line: "Not God bless America, God damn America."
"Barack Obama: He chose as his pastor a man who blamed the U.S. for the 9/11 attacks. Does that sound like someone who should be president?" the ad says.
The ad was quickly removed from state party's site, and the Obama campaign declined to comment.
The Democrat also put up a new negative ad, featuring Vice President Dick Cheney at an event Saturday in Wyoming, saying: "I'm delighted to support John McCain."
Still, Mr. Obama on Sunday used Mr. McCain's appearance on "Saturday Night Live" to make a point about uniting the nation, saying his rival "was funny."
"That's part of what our politics should be about - being able to laugh at each other but also laugh at ourselves," the senator from Illinois said. "Being able to understand that all of us: black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, Democrat, Republican, young, old, rich, poor, gay, straight, disabled, non-disabled, all of us are in this together. All of us have work to do, all of us have a valuable part to play."
Mr. Obama then transitioned into blasting Republicans for playing "the same political games and tactics that always pit us against one another."
The Republican National Committee began another automated call into voter homes featuring Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's harshest criticism of Mr. Obama - whom she now supports - during the long and bitter Democratic primary season.
"In the White House, there is no time for speeches and on-the-job training. Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign and Senator Obama will bring a speech that he gave in 2002. I think that is a significant difference," she said in March, three months before she ended her bid to endorse her opponent.
The call will play in battleground states where the senator from New York is stumping on Mr. Obama's behalf.
Before the nominee took the stage in Columbus, an Obama organizer blasted Republican robocalls and said the Democrat's campaign does not do that. That is untrue, though; the campaign has run many automated calls slamming Mr. McCain as a George Bush clone.
Mr. McCain also took a nostalgic trip to New Hampshire, which twice backed him and saved his primary campaigns. The state was won by Democrat John Kerry in 2004, and the Republican now trails. He held a town hall in Peterborough, the site of one of his first campaign stops in 2000, when he gave away free ice cream but still drew fewer than 30 people.
"I come to the people of New Hampshire to ask them to let me go on one more mission," said Mr. McCain.
Mr. McCain and the RNC have ramped up their spending in the campaign's final days and now are matching Mr. Obama ad for ad in battleground states such as Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
After months of planning, the Republican Party launched the last stage of its vaunted "72-hour program," when volunteers descend on competitive states for the final stretch. Democrats unleashed their "persuasion army" of backers scouring their own back yards to encourage people to back Mr. Obama in the campaign's waning hours.
Mr. Obama - ahead in all battleground and national polls - continued to avoid the press Sunday, brushing aside what he acknowledged was a "pretty good question" about the bailout bill by saying: "We're on a tarmac."
The reporter shouted back: "Have a press conference then?"
"I will, on Wednesday," Mr. Obama said.
The exchange was picked up quickly by the Republican National Committee, which issued it to reporters as part of its regular "Audacity Watch."
But later on the plane, spokeswoman Linda Douglass pulled back from the Wednesday promise. He would speak to the press before the end of the week, but "don't count on Wednesday," she said.
Mr. Obama joined up with his wife, Michelle, on Saturday. Introducing him to the crowd Sunday in Columbus, she offered an upbeat assessment that her husband will win.
"Beyond Tuesday, we are going to need you every step of the way," she told more than 60,000 who had filled the streets around the state Capitol.
After the Columbus rally, the campaign headed to Cleveland for a rally with rocker Bruce Springsteen and 80,000 fans, and then to Cincinnati for the final stop.
Meanwhile, Mr. McCain was traveling with wife Cindy, daughter Meghan and several senators, including Mr. Lieberman and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, along with former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, who urged supporters in Scranton, Pa., to hang tough until Election Day.
"We got some work left to do. We got two days and a wake up," the former Marine said, using military jargon.
LOAD-DATE: November 3, 2008
GRAPHIC: 'MAC IS BACK': Sen. John McCain fires up supporters in Wallingford, Pa., on Sunday. Pennsylvania, which voted Democratic in 2004, is seen as a must-win for the Republican.[Photo by Katie Falkenberg/The Washington Times]
'WE'VE GOT WORK TO DO': Sen. Barack Obama warns a crowd outside the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus not to become complacent in the last few days before Election Day. [Photo by Getty Images]
Sen. John McCain's campaign says its internal polling puts traditionally "blue" Pennsylvania within reach, although outside surveys show the Republican trailing by six or seven points.[Photo by Katie Falkenberg/The Washington Times]; Sen. Barack Obama, with his wife, Michelle, stopped by major cities in Ohio, which cost the Democrats the White House in 2004 but where Mr. Obama has kept a lead in the polls. [Photo by Associated Press]
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Independent cash fuels advertising offensive by GOP
BYLINE: By Jennifer Haberkorn, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
After being outspent for months, Republicans poured money into advertising in the final two weeks of the election campaign, in hopes of countering the record fundraising by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.
Independent groups that supported Sen. John McCain's presidential bid by airing ads or canvassing for votes dramatically increased their spending, surpassing the lead that groups supporting Mr. Obama once held.
Between Oct. 19 and Thursday, independent groups spent $33.4 million on advertisements, mailings or canvassing in support of Mr. McCain or against Mr. Obama, while groups that support Mr. Obama or oppose Mr. McCain spent $8.1 million, according to an analysis of records filed at the Federal Election Commission.
The late surge pushes total spending by outside groups into Mr. McCain's favor. Before Oct. 19, groups supporting Mr. Obama had outspent those backing his opponent by about 25 percent. Combined, theyhave spent $141.2 million this election cycle.
The tally of spending by independent groups includes only those that have to file reports with the FEC and that name a presidential candidate in their ad. It does not include money spent on local races or work on behalf of a party, by groups such as the Republican-leaning Let Freedom Ring or Democratic-leaning Patriot Majority.
An unofficial tally from the Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) found that federally oriented 527 and 501(c) groups - so named for their section in tax codes - have collected or spent $350 million and are on track to top $400 million. They have spent money on both presidential and local races.
Democratic 527 groups have about a 3-1 advantage over Republican 527s, while Republicans favor 501(c) groups, according to CFI.
The spending by Republican groups has helped Mr. McCain's campaign counter a losing battle against Mr. Obama's substantially larger war chest. Over the entire campaign, Mr. Obama had raised more than $600 million as of the end of September, while Mr. McCain had $324 million to spend. The senator from Arizona raised $240 million for the primary outside the system of public financing but, unlike Mr. Obama, took federal money for the general election, which limited him to the $84 million it provides.
That has enabled the Obama campaign to outspend the McCain campaign by 3-to-1 in television advertising alone from Oct. 21 to Oct. 28, according to a study released Friday by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, which tracks political ads.
Mr. Obama's campaign spent nearly $21.5 million and Mr. McCain spent $7.5 million during that same period.
"The advertising advantage held by the Obama campaign this year puts us in unchartered waters," said Ken Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin at Madison professor of political science and director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project. "This year, the spending is hugely unequal, and in some cases, the Obama campaign has massive advantages."
In recent days, the Republican groups have dramatically increased their spending.
The upstart National Republican Trust PAC, for instance, late last week bought $1.2 million in ads highlighting Mr. Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. It has also run ads that say Mr. Obama wants to allow driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, a claim that fact-checking groups have disputed.
The Republican spending is led by the Republican National Committee, which had planned to spend nearly $25 million in the past two weeks on advertising in battleground states.
"The most important days of the campaign is the last five, and the second most important is the next-to-last five," said Brad Todd, whose firm, On Message Inc., is doing independent expenditures for the RNC.
Though he recognizes that outside Republican funding is not going to match Mr. Obama's fundraising prowess, "It's our hope that the very clear, really true difference will be easy to understand with less resources," he said.
Groups supporting Mr. Obama and Democrats haven't slowed, either.
Patriot Majority, which is funded by unions, spent $3.4 million last week running television ads critical of Republican senators in tough elections.
The Service Employees International Union Committee on Political Education, which also supports Mr. Obama and other Democratic candidates, spent more than $1 million last week alone, part of an $85 million campaign.
"We're absolutely intensifying our ground campaign," said Michelle Ringuette, an SEIU spokeswoman.
In the last 72 hours of the campaign, she said, the group will have more than 100,000 union members working to get out the vote.
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Moderation not key for GOP incumbent;
Smith is guilty by association
BYLINE: By Valerie Richardson, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Republican Sen. Gordon H. Smith has compiled one of the most moderate voting records in the Senate during his two terms, but that may not be enough to win over voters in this increasingly "blue" state.
Recent polls show Mr. Smith, 56, slipping behind his Democratic challenger, state House Speaker Jeff Merkley, by a handful of percentage points as the bitter, contentious race enters its final stretch.
But analysts say the race has less to do with Mr. Smith and Mr. Merkley than with Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama. While Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is cruising to a double-digit win in Oregon, President Bush's approval rating hovers at 20 percent, the lowest in the nation.
"In Oregon, it's a very bad year to be a Republican," said pollster Tim Hibbitts of the Portland-based firm Davis Hibbitts and Midghall. "Bush is frankly dragging down the Republican candidates. I can't emphasize how much damage he has done to Republicans in this state."
The McCain campaign, having given up on the solidly Democratic state, hasn't helped matters.
"Obama is very strong here, and there's no McCain presence whatsoever," Mr. Hibbitts said.
As a result, Mr. Smith's record of bipartisan cooperation isn't resonating as loudly as he had hoped. Over the summer, he irked Democrats by running two television ads linking himself to Mr. Obama, pointing out that the two had backed legislation on gas-mileage standards.
"Gordon Smith is working with Barack Obama and most Democrat senators for a bipartisan energy bill," intoned one ad.
Mr. Merkley, 52, has shot back with ads linking his opponent to the president - "Smith votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time," says one - and more recently with campaign spots featuring Mr. Obama himself.
"With Jeff Merkley in the U.S. Senate, we can get our country back on track," the Illinois senator says.
Mr. Smith has since switched tactics by warning about the dangers of "one-party dominance" in the event that Mr. Obama wins the presidency and Democrats gain 60 seats in the Senate, enough for a filibuster-proof majority.
"We're trying to make the case to the people of Oregon that one-party dominance, a blank check, no checks and balances, could be a very unfortunate thing for our country," said Mr. Smith in a radio interview here Tuesday with conservative talk-show host Lars Larson. "That doesn't work, and Americans know that."
The Merkley campaign responded by accusing Mr. Smith of attempting to put the brakes on an Obama presidency.
"It's 180 degrees from where he started in this campaign," Merkley spokesman Matt Canter said. "In this, the final week, he's standing up for gridlock."
The Oregonian, the state's largest newspaper, endorsed Mr. Smith, praising his independence and calling him "no slave to the GOP agenda" and noting that "Merkley has thus far showed no inclination to express his independence from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party's line on anything of importance."
Mr. Smith supported the Bush tax cuts and a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. At the same time, he has worked with Democrats and broken with Republicans on key votes.
Despite his pro-life stance, he supported stem-cell research. He co-sponsored legislation with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, to expand hate-crimes protections to gays. He voted against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He reversed his earlier support for the Iraq war and has since called for the removal of U.S. troops.
Mr. Smith has also worked closely with Oregon's senior senator, Democrat Ron Wyden, issuing joint press releases and holding town meetings together. The Republican cited his relationship with Mr. Wyden in early campaign ads, although Mr. Wyden has made it clear that he backs his fellow Democrat.
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BYLINE: By Donald Lambro, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Joseph Biden recently blew the whistle on Barack Obama's specious claims that he would cut income taxes for 95 percent of Americans by raising them for people earning more than $250,000.
The Obama's gaffe-prone running mate, who has become the loose cannon of his campaign, said in an unscripted interview with a TV station in Scranton that the real soak-the-rich tax threshold in Mr. Obama's plan would start with incomes at $150,000.
He later tried to revise his remarks by saying anyone earning between $150,000 and $250,000 wouldn't get a tax cut but their tax rates wouldn't rise, either. Sure. Or as Sarah Palin would say with a wink and a nod, "You betcha."
But Mr. Obama's draconian income-tax rate on the top 5 percent of income earners would not produce nearly enough federal revenue to pay for his so-called "tax cuts" for 95 percent of the nation's taxpayers and the rest of his social-welfare spending.
"Those 5 percent don't make enough money, or at least they won't after they find ways to shelter more of their income when their tax rates rise," the Wall Street Journal editorialized Wednesday.
Mr. Biden was revealing what has long been suspected among economic analysts who have crunched the numbers on his income transfer tax plan. Mr. Obama's tax-the-rich plan to send checks to the 47 million lower-income tax filers who pay no income taxes belies his specious 95 percent claim, since he does not cut their income tax rates.
Mr. Biden's uncontrolled bout of candor pokes one more hole in Mr. Obama's tax plan to expand the number of working Americans who pay no income taxes to nearly 50 million. Indeed, his campaign Web site boasts that his income-redistribution plan would wipe another 10 million people off the tax rolls.
It also exposed one more claim in a long line of falsehoods the Obama campaign has told about his shifting tax scheme. An Obama TV ad running in battleground states says, for example, that his plan has won support from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, when nothing could be further from the truth.
On the contrary, a recent analysis by the foundation's Center for Data Analysis concludes that John McCain's economic recovery plan would stimulate more economic growth than the Obama plan. Among its chief findings:
* Job growth over 10 years is more than twice as high under Mr. McCain's tax plan than Mr. Obama's.
* Total employment grows an average of 915,800 jobs under Mr. Obama, and by 2.13 million under Mr. McCain.
* Economic growth, as measured by the country's gross domestic product, would be "nearly 3 times higher than under Obama."
* A typical family of four "would see an average of $5,138 more in disposable income under McCain plans compared with $3,631 more under Mr. Obama's."
A strategic weakness in Mr. Obama's income-redistribution plan stems from his decision to give low- to middle-income taxpayers a refundable tax credit, instead of cutting their tax rates, said Heritage analyst William Beach, who led the study.
"Because Sen. Obama relies largely on tax credits to achieve his redistribution, his plan does not find a large economic benefit from lower tax rates, nor a more efficient tax structure," Mr. Beach wrote.
"This lower economic performance stems in large part from the modest decreases in marginal tax rates on taxpayers earning less than $250,000 and increases in those rates above that level," he said.
Mr. Obama has sold his plan as something it is not: a plan that will grow the economy when, in fact, it would grow the government at the economy's expense.
At the core of his plan is the belief that renewed growth depends first and foremost on income transfers to low- and middle-income people and a mountain of "infrastructure" spending on roads, bridges and other public-works projects, and grants to state governments to spend as they please.
Mr. McCain's plan is rooted in the belief that economic growth, job creation and higher incomes can only be fueled by lower tax rates to stimulate business expansion, entrepreneurial risk-taking and capital investment that will grow the economy, not the government.
Even Democrats, some of whom are now advising Mr. Obama, have raised questions about his pump-priming infrastructure spending and his rigid opposition to Mr. McCain's proposal to cut the 35 percent corporate income tax. "It's going to be very hard to compete for jobs if we keep high corporate tax rates," David Rothkopf, a trade official in the Clinton administration, told The Washington Post last week.
Notably, two other economists in Bill Clinton's administration wrote earlier this year that spending on infrastructure, as Mr. Obama proposes, is among the "less effective options" to combat looming recessions because the money usually trickles down into the economy too late to do any good.
The authors of that study: Douglas W. Elmendorf, now an adviser to House Democrats, and Jason Furman, Mr. Obama's chief economic adviser.
Donald Lambro, chief political correspondent of The Washington Times, is a nationally syndicated columnist.
LOAD-DATE: November 3, 2008
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Losing sight;
Blinded by pretty pictures
BYLINE: By Armstrong Williams, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The presidential debates of 1960 ushered in a newfound awareness of image - this time the personal one on camera due to the mercurial rise of televisions. Those who simply listened to the debate reported a win for Nixon, whereas those who viewed the program declared Kennedy the champion. As tomorrow's ballot battle will finally declare a winner, politicians and the media continue to cater to a culture that truly embodies the adage "a picture is worth a thousand words," making it ever more important for the candidate's PR team to sell their nominee's image. It will come as no surprise that Sen. Barack Obama trumps the other in marketability. But should looking presidential and fitting in with pop culture qualify you to lead the world's most powerful nation in a time of economic turmoil?
In this presidential cycle, Mr. Obama has graced the cover of a dozen Time magazines and eight Newsweek publications. His face has been painted on GQ, Rolling Stone, Vogue for Men ? the list continues - even including a few teen magazines. The headlines often read: "The Contender," "A New Hop " and " It's Obama Time," while his photos remain strong and occasionally have an artificial halo-like glow.
Sen. John McCain, on the other hand, was on the cover of Time only five times - and three of those appearances were with Mr. Obama. There are no pop culture magazines that place Mr. McCain's "trendy" look on their cover or teen magazines that ask about the Arizona senator's "dreaminess" factor. Yet, allegedly this is all done in fairness, or a way that the networks can try to present themselves as fair. In truth, it wouldn't be far off the mark to claim that the mainstreammedia has sold product Obama to the American people.
So what makes Mr. Obama sell? His style is fresh. His look is original. His image portrays the essence of youth. His rhetoric sculpts a catchy headline for the Fourth Estate. Although Mr. McCain attempted to sell his "maverick-ability," he carries himself like an old politician. Despite the fact that he looks like your average elected official, he attempted to market his policies as refreshed and against the traditional grain. Frankly, policies won't motivate voters tomorrow to vote for Mr. McCain. The mainstream media, which is unofficially Mr. Obama's PR machine, has made the populace desirous of a man who appears powerful. Simply because someone appears on the cover as presidential and powerful does not mean he would make an effective commander-in-chief.
As a result, many voters tomorrow will be blinded by the pretty pictures of Mr. Obama, thereby losing sight of what's important - the issues.
Although this perception may seem to be a reality, it does not necessarily translate into an actuality. Only when we turn the page past the cover, past the publicity to find the heart of their policies and the motivation behind their philosophies, can we truly determine the candidate's suitability for our nation's highest office. If we look at the ad campaigns of the candidates, both can be denounced as having been untrue to some form of their commitments to being different. Mr. Obama's claim is change, though it has been hard to tell exactly what the change is, and Mr. McCain's specialty is having been a maverick and a veteran. Both espouse some kind of difference from the norm, but neither is exuding it particularly well. The differences the voters see are in Mr. Obama, by virtue of being black, and Mr. McCain's decision to nominate a woman to vice president. Mr. McCain himself doesn't look very different, and Mr. Obama's selection of Joe Biden made his ticket look a little more "normal."
However, perhaps it would be more important what the president will do, than what he looks like. For instance, Mr. McCain is pro-life and against embryonic stem-cell research, which would most likely provide impetus for abortions thereby raising the number of such procedures performed. Mr. Obama is pro-choice and would be in favor of policies that allow women to disregard the life of a viable human being inside her as well as the opinion of the living man who made it possible for her to potentially bear a child. Mr. McCain is in favor of lowering the taxes on the wealthy with the highest corporate tax in an effort to stimulate the economy, and Mr. Obama wants to raise taxes on the sector responsible for creating the most jobs, which history shows to be poor judgment. In essence, Mr. McCain is making an effort to keep most Americans employed while having the rich pay more, and Mr. Obama is taking the popular idea of taxing the rich and giving it to the poor.
No matter what the outcome tomorrow, the American people will finally have their say in this critical moment in our young history. We must respect and honor the will of the people no matter how unbalanced and shameful the media reporting has been.
Armstrong Williams' column for The Washington Times appears on Mondays.
LOAD-DATE: November 3, 2008
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Redskins Rule ideal for 'Monday Night'
BYLINE: By Tim Lemke, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. Barack Obama would never admit it, but he needs the Washington Redskins to lose Monday night to the Pittsburgh Steelers to become president.
Political pundits can talk ad nauseam about his rousing speeches, his massive edge in campaign dollars and his promise of middle-class tax cuts. But none of that matters when, historically, the most accurate predictor of presidential elections is the NFL team representing the District.
It's called the Redskins Rule, and it has an accuracy rate of either 94 or 100 percent depending on how it's applied. Every time the Redskins win their final home game before a presidential election, the candidate representing the incumbent party remains in office. Every time they lose, the incumbent party's candidate loses as well. It's a predictor that has worked in 16 of 17 presidential elections since the Redskins arrived in Washington. (Some argue the rule is 17-for-17; more on that in a second.)
Obama, an Illinois Democrat, leads Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, in nearly every poll. That suggests the Redskins will lose despite entering the game as two-point favorites.
"There's a lot of pressure on the Redskins, especially with the way everyone thinks this election is going to go," said Steve Hirdt, executive vice president of the Elias Sports Bureau, who works on ESPN's "Monday Night Football" telecasts.
Hirdt claims to have first come across the rule when in search of a conversation point for a game between the Redskins and Titans before the 2000 election. After thumbing through a team media guide, he found that, starting in 1940, the result of the final home game before the election always foretold the outcome on Election Day. In 1948, the Redskins Rule proved smarter than one famous newspaper headline
when a 59-21 win by Washington against the Boston Yanks correctly predicted Democrat Harry Truman's win against Republican Thomas Dewey.
Is this a coincidence, or is this mesh of politics and sports a product of the supernatural?
"These things are decided by fate and mysticism beyond the comprehension of normal man," Hirdt said.
References to other dimensions aside, Hirdt said he enjoys touting the Redskins Rule because the team is not required to support the same political party each election. It is a politically unbiased phenomenon that has stood the test of time, though it is worth pointing out the rule was tweaked after the controversial election of 2000, when George W. Bush topped Al Gore despite losing the popular vote.
In 2004, the Redskins lost to the Packers 28-14, suggesting Bush should have lost to John Kerry. Hirdt changed the way the rule is applied to have it refer to the previous winner of the popular vote, not the electoral vote.
"Scientists are always studying data and coming up with different conclusions," Hirdt rationalized. "After 2004, because Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, we tweaked the precision of how the Redskins Rule is applied."
Is that cheating? Perhaps, but keep in mind that this is a rule that was discovered only during efforts to help fill the airwaves during a football game.
"Monday Night Football" host Mike Tirico said discussion of the Redskins Rule will be weaved into the broadcast but said "it's one of those things that everybody talks about - but then completely forgets about afterward."
Tirico, who said he plans to fly from Reagan National Airport to his home state of Michigan to vote Tuesday, said the game should be compelling enough to draw viewers. But he admitted he was one of the first to suggest that ESPN select it because of its proximity to Election Day.
"I said, 'Guys, we're going to have a Redskins game on Monday night in D.C. Wouldn't it be great if we could be in Washington the day before the election?' " he said. "With everybody talking about it, we think that's the place to be."
ESPN plans to air interviews with Obama and McCain during its halftime show and will turn to analyst and longtime D.C. resident Tony Kornheiser for the occasional election-related quip. The cable network also will air short features about former NFL players who entered politics and another about the 2004 Illinois Senate race, which nearly pitted Obama against ESPN analyst and former Chicago Bears player and coach Mike Ditka.
"Everyone thought this would be a great thing, and in our conversations with the league, they thought it was a compelling idea," said Leah LaPlaca, ESPN's vice president of programming and acquisitions. "Thankfully, they were able to make that happen."
LOAD-DATE: November 3, 2008
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
November 2, 2008 Sunday
State Edition
In Fla., Palin criticizes Obama;
She says he's trying to scare older voters about entitlements
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-11
DATELINE: NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla.
Sarah Palin warned yesterday that Barack Obama is trying to exploit retirees' fears about what the Republican presidential ticket would do to Medicare and Social Security.
In stops yesterday in Florida before her appearance last night in the Richmond area, the Republican vice-presidential candidate urged older voters - a key Florida voting bloc - not to fall for "the oldest and cheapest kind of politics around."
"Barack Obama goes around promising a new kind of politics, but then he comes here to Florida and tries to exploit the fears and worries about Social Security and Medicare to our retirees," Palin said.
Palin promised that Republican presidential candidate John McCain would "keep faith" with older Americans and protect Social Security and that, "we will not cut a single Medicare benefit."
Palin reminded Floridians that three days remained before Election Day. "Florida, we need you. We're asking for your vote," Palin said.
The Obama campaign wasted little time in responding, releasing a list of published past remarks by McCain, some dating years, in support for President Bush's privatization plan to allow workers to invest their Social Security taxes in the stock market.
Democrats have questioned that support in light of the stock market collapse. Republicans have noted that the collapse would not have had an impact on seniors now collecting Social Security.
"The fact is that John McCain's support for George Bush's scheme to gamble the retirement of our workers in the stock market is a bridge to nowhere for millions of Americans who count on a secure retirement," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor.
However, Factcheck.org, a nonpartisan project of the University of Pennsylvania Public Policy Center, says there is no basis for Obama to accuse McCain of planning huge Medicare benefit and eligibility cuts - something he has been doing in a TV ad and in speeches.
Factcheck.org says, "McCain does propose substantial 'savings' through cutting fraud, increased use of information technology and better handling of expensive chronic disease." Obama proposes some of the same cost-saving measures.
An estimated 5,500 people attended Palin's New Port Richey event, where she was accompanied by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Palin later appeared in Polk City, making similar remarks.
Palin's appearances in Virginia and Florida yesterday reflect the states' importance in the election.
Palin's performance as a candidate has been criticized by some in the media, and even by some within her own party. Still, there also has been speculation that she may be already angling for a run for the White House of her own in 2012, if she and McCain lose on Tuesday.
Betty McMillen, 74, of Port Richey, was among the Palin enthusiasts who arrived before dawn for yesterday's event.
"With a little more experience and some training, she'll make a great president in four years," McMillen said.
Four years? Does McMillen think the Republican ticket is not going to win Tuesday?
"No, not that," her friend, Maria Massey, 57, of Hudson, interrupted. What McMillen meant, said Massey, was that McCain, now 72, likely won't choose to serve more than four years in the White House.
But later, McMillen pulled a reporter aside to explain that, in fact, she'd prefer Palin over McCain and hopes that the Alaska governor becomes the party's presidential candidate in four years, regardless of what happens Tuesday.
Contact Billy House at (202) 541-5080 or bhouse@mediageneral.com
LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
November 2, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-7
Test your knowledge of this week's political news.
1) According to the AP, Barack Obama approached which politician to be his White House chief of staff, should he win the presidency?
A. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.
B. Former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
C. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va.
D. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.
2) Which John McCain supporter said Thursday, "of course" Sarah Palin's not ready to be president?
A. President Bush
B. Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger
C. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty
D. Virginia Sen. John W. Warner
3) Which notable guest was a no-show when McCain announced his name Thursday at a rally in Ohio?
A. Rudy Giuliani
B. Joe the Plumber
C. Don King
D. Arnold Schwarzenegger
4) What proportion of stories about Palin on NBC, CBS and ABC between Sept. 29 and Oct. 12 were negative vs. positive, according to a study by the Media Research Center?
A. 2 to 1
B. 8 to 1
C. 18 to 1
D. 28 to 1
5) What did Palin say would be printed on every page in the federal employee handbook if she and McCain are elected?
A. "Country First."
B. "USA! USA! USA!"
C. "Drill, baby, drill."
D. "Joe the Plumber pays your salary."
6) Which of these politicians is not on any presidential ballot?
A. Bob Barr
B. Cynthia McKinney
C. Ralph Nader
D. Al Gore
7) How many people saw Obama's 30-minute infomercial last week?
A. 20.2 million
B. 33.6 million
C. 40.2 million
D. 16.9 million
8) Which of these national candidates is also seeking re-election?
A. Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska
B. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
C. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del.
D. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
9) Palin, responding to criticism that the GOP spent $150,000 on clothes for her and her family, said she prefers buying her clothes where?
A. The Target in Wasilla, Alaska
B. A favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska
C. Macy's in Seattle
D. J.C. Penney in Fairbanks, Alaska
10) In a TV ad this week, where did Obama suggest voters look to see the direction of McCain's economic policies?
A. Rearview mirror, because McCain's policies are the same as President Bush's.
B. North to Alaska
C. "Bonanza" episodes, because McCain is "Little Joe" to Bush's "Hoss" Cartwright
D. East Nowhere
ANSWERS
1) D - Emanuel worked as a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton. His media consultant, David Axelrod, is Obama's chief strategist.
2) B - Eagleburger, secretary of state under George H.W. Bush, said Palin, after a time in the White House, would be "adequate."
3) B - McCain called for "Joe the Plumber" to raise his hand, only to find the man was not there. The campaign sent a car to pick up "Joe" - Samuel J. Wurzelbacher - for later stops, The New York Times reported.
4) C - 18 to 1. The conservative media watchdog group found that of 69 stories about Palin, 37 were deemed negative and two positive. An additional 30 stories were neutral.
5) A - Palin said the McCain-Palin campaign slogan "Country First" would appear on every page.
6) D - Al Gore is not running for president.
7) B - 33.6 million. Broadcast networks carrying the ad drew larger audiences than those airing regular programming.
8) C - Biden is expected to win a seventh Senate term, though he has not campaigned in Delaware or debated his opponent this year.
9) B - Palin also started telling audiences when she was wearing items from the consignment shop.
10) A - Obama said Bush's face can be seen in the rearview mirror.
LOAD-DATE: November 6, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
November 2, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
JOHN McCAIN;
In Va. stops, he pushes for a comeback
BYLINE: NEIL H. SIMON AND BILL GEROUX
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-1
Republican presidential nominee John McCain yesterday urged supporters in the population centers of Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to "not give up hope" in his quest for the state's 13 electoral votes.
"We're a few points down, my friends. But we're coming back. The Mac is back," McCain said in Fairfax County, which he called "key to this election."
Fairfax is home to nearly one-seventh of the state's 5 million registered voters.
Earlier, at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, the Arizona senator told about 4,000 audience members that his race with Democrat Barack Obama is tightening across the nation and in the critical state of Virginia.
"Let me restate the obvious again: We need to win Virginia on the 4th of November," he said to cheers.
Last night, McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, rallied voters in suburban Richmond with an event at Deep Run High School in Henrico County. McCain was scheduled to appear on "Saturday Night Live" late last night in New York.
Obama and McCain will make final pitches to Virginia voters tomorrow.
Obama, an Illinois senator, will cap his general-election campaign with an evening rally at the Prince William County Fairgrounds.
McCain will make a final appeal to voters in Southwest Virginia during a stop at the Tri-Cities Regional Airport in Blountville, Tenn., near Bristol, Va.
In Springfield yesterday, McCain hammered Obama on taxes and political experience before a crowd of about 3,000 supporters outside Interstate Van Lines' headquarters.
"The next president won't have time to get used to the office," McCain said. And referring to the Democratic-controlled Congress, he added: "I'm not going to let this Congress tax away your retirement."
Obama has promised tax cuts for people making less than $250,000 a year.
The Obama campaign said yesterday's three Virginia stops by McCain and Palin showed the Republicans' "level of concern" about the Virginia vote.
"They realize they're in serious trouble," Obama spokesman Kevin Griffis said.
McCain has spent the past week turning a message about protecting military spending into an argument about jobs in this state that depends heavily on defense dollars.
At Christopher Newport, McCain warned that Obama would team with a Democratic Congress to enact "massive" tax increases while cutting the defense budget.
The suggestion of that prospect drew hearty boos from the crowd in Hampton Roads, a region full of military veterans, military bases and defense contractors, including the nearby Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard, the sole builder of U.S. aircraft carriers.
To former Virginia GOP Executive Director J. Kenneth Klinge, the message works because national Democrats have gotten "cocky." Last month, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., recommended cutting defense spending by 25 percent - an issue McCain is using in a radio ad in Hampton Roads.
McCain told the crowd that recent polls show him closing the gap with Obama.
"We've been a couple of [percentage] points down, but we're coming back, and we're coming back in Virginia," he said.
"I am an American, and I choose to fight," he almost shouted in closing. "Don't give up hope. Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight."
The crowd included hundreds of students from Christopher Newport, including several who braved the cool morning air by wearing bathing suits and red body-paint with large letters spelling out "McCain."
In Fairfax, Republican Josee Cox of Great Falls had another idea about how to excite McCain supporters.
She planned a pre-election party of "drinking spirits and raising spirits."
Contact Neil H. Simon at (202) 662-7669 or nsimon@mediageneral.com
Contact Bill Geroux at (757) 498-2820 or bgeroux@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: November 6, 2008
NOTES: BREAKING NEWS 11/1/08 11:34 AM on inRich.com
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Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
November 2, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-17
Barack Obama
Party: Democratic
Running mate: Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Experience: U.S. Senate, 2005-present; Illinois state Senate, 1997-2004; constitutional-law instructor, University of Chicago, 1993-2004; director, Project VOTE in Illinois, 1992; former practicing attorney
Age: 47 (born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu)
John McCain
Party: Republican
Running mate: Sarah Palin
Experience: U.S. Senate, 1987-present; Republican candidate for president, 2000; U.S. House of Representatives, 1983-87; director, Navy Senate Liaison Office in Washington, 1977-81; captain, Navy pilot, 1977; prisoner of war in Hanoi, Vietnam, 1967-73; commissioned, U.S. Navy, 1958
Age: 72 (born Aug. 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone)
Chuck Baldwin
Party: Independent Green
Running mate: Darrell L. Castle
Experience: founder/minister, Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., 1975-present; Constitution Party candidate for vice president, 2004; started radio call-in show, 1994; Pensacola chairman and then state chairman of the Florida Moral Majority, 1980-84
Age: 56 (born May 3, 1952, in La Porte, Ind.)
Bob Barr
Party: Libertarian
Running mate: Wayne A. Root
Experience: Republican member of U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia, 1995-2003; attorney, 1978-86 and 1991-94; anti-drug coordinator for Justice Department, southeastern U.S., 1986-90; CIA analyst, 1971-78
Age: 59 (born Nov. 5, 1948, in Iowa City, Iowa)
Cynthia McKinney
Party: Green
Running mate: Rosa Clemente
Experience: 1993-2003 and 2005-07, Democratic member of U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia (first black woman elected to Congress from Georgia); Georgia state House of Representatives, 1988-92; diplomatic fellow, Spelman College, 1984
Age: 53 (born March 17, 1955, in Atlanta)
Ralph Nader
Party: independent
Running mate: Matt Gonzalez
Experience: candidate for president, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004; 1958-present, attorney, consumer advocate, founder of Center for Auto Safety, Project for Corporate Responsibility, Clean Water Action Project and Public Interest Research Group
Age: 74 (born Feb. 27, 1934, in Winsted, Conn.)
* * * * *
Here's a look at where the presidential candidates who have qualified to be on Virginia's ballot stand on various issues. The candidates are listed in the order in which they will appear on the ballot.
ABORTION
Obama: Favors abortion rights. Supports abstinence education, expanded access to contraception, and support of adoption.
McCain: Opposes abortion rights. Believes abortion should be a state, not a federal, decision
Baldwin: Supports overturning Roe v. Wade
Barr: Believes government should leave the question to each person.
McKinney: Supports abortion rights.
Nader: Supports abortion rights.
AFGHANISTAN
Obama: Would add about 7,000 troops to the U.S. force of 36,000, bringing the reinforcements from Iraq. Has threatened unilateral attack on high-value terrorist targets in Pakistan as they become exposed, "if Pakistan cannot or will not act" against them.
McCain: Would add three more brigades to U.S. forces and double the size of the Afghan army to 160,000. Appoint "Afghanistan czar" based in White House.
Baldwin: Opposes most foreign involvement and would not engage in nation-building, empire-building or interventionism.
Barr: Favors bringing home all U.S. soldiers deployed in other countries.
McKinney: Supports an end to the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Nader: Would not have soldiers in Iraq. Advocates an economic development plan emphasizing public works and cooperation with tribal chieftains.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE
Obama: Raised private money for general election, despite his proposal last year to accept public financing and its spending limits if the Republican nominee did, too. Refuses to accept money from federal lobbyists and has instructed the Democratic National Committee to do the same for its joint victory fund. Accepts money from state lobbyists and from family members of federal lobbyists.
McCain: Co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law. Ran his general campaign with public money and within its spending limits. Accepts campaign contributions from lobbyists.
Baldwin: Opposes stricter limits on political campaign funds.
Barr: Supports abolishing tax-financed subsidies to candidates or parties and the repeal of all laws that restrict voluntary financing of election campaigns.
McKinney: Proposes caps on spending and contributions, both nationally and locally. Supports full public financing of elections.
Nader: Supports public funding of campaigns. Does not accept contributions from commercial interests or political-action committees.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Obama: Backs 10-year, $150 billion program to produce "climate-friendly" energy supplies, to be paid for with a carbon auction requiring businesses to bid competitively for the right to pollute - plan is aimed at cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. Joined McCain in sponsoring earlier legislation that would set mandatory caps on greenhouse-gas emissions. Supports tougher fuel-efficiency standards.
McCain: Broke with President Bush on global warming. Led Senate effort to cap green- house-gas emissions. Favors plan that would see emissions cut 60 percent by 2050. Proposes a market-based approach that would set caps on greenhouse gases and offer credits to industries. Supports tougher fuel-efficiency standards.
Baldwin: Opposes Kyoto Protocol.
Barr: Says initiatives must maintain economic growth. Supports lowering government barriers to private research and development in order to find technological innovations.
McKinney: Calls for short- and long-term cuts to greenhouse-gas emissions. Favors programs to encourage U.S. energy conservation. Opposes nuclear energy. Opposes biofuels that require land needed to grow food.
Nader: Supports Kyoto Protocol.
EDUCATION
Obama: An $18 billion plan would encourage, but not mandate, universal pre-kindergarten. Would have teacher pay raises tied to, although not based solely on, test scores. Backs overhaul of No Child Left Behind law to measure student progress better, make room for noncore subjects such as music and art, and be less punitive toward failing schools. Supports a tax credit to pay up to $4,000 of college costs for students who perform 100 hours of community service a year. Opposes tuition vouchers.
McCain: Favors parental choice of schools, including vouchers for private schools when approved by local officials, and the right of parents to choose home-schooling. Wants more money for community college education. Would freeze education spending for one year as part of a domestic spending freeze and then his plan would add less than $1 billion to the education budget.
Baldwin: Would disband the Department of Education. Supports voucher program. Supports tax relief for home-schoolers.
Barr: Supports the abolishment of the Department of Education and returning management of schools to states and localities for greater accountability and parental involvement.
McKinney: Favors repeal of the No Child Left Behind law and a federal policy that ensures equal access to quality education. Opposes vouchers.
Nader: Says investment in K-12 education will reduce poverty. Would emphasize civics and consumer education, rather than standardized testing.
ENERGY
Obama: Would consider limited increase in offshore drilling. Opposes drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Proposes windfall-profits tax on largest oil companies to pay for energy rebate of up to $1,000. Open to tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for short-term relief from high energy costs. Global-warming plan would increase energy costs.
McCain: Favors increased offshore drilling and federal money to help build 45 nuclear-power reactors by 2030. Opposes drilling in Arctic refuge. Would suspend purchases of foreign oil for strategic reserve during periods of high prices to reduce demand. Would spend $2 billion annually on clean-coal technology and promote wind, solar and hydro power. Global-warming plan would increase energy costs. Opposes windfall profits tax.
Baldwin: Supports drilling for domestic oil and building more refineries and nuclear plants.
Barr: Favors exploration and production of domestic resources offshore and in the Arctic refuge. Proposes eliminating all energy pricing and subsidies, instead letting the free market determine prices.
McKinney: Encourages policies that shift U.S. toward clean energy and a 50 percent reduction in energy use within 20 years. Opposes development of alternative fuels (coal or crops, for example) that would harm environment. Opposes drilling offshore and in the Arctic refuge.
Nader: Supports a carbon tax, ending subsidies to oil, nuclear, electric and coal-mining interests and investing in renewable energy sources.
GAY MARRIAGE
Obama: Opposes constitutional amendment to ban it. Supports civil unions; says states should decide about marriage. Switched positions in 2004 and now supports repeal of Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition of same-sex marriages and gives states the right to refuse to recognize such marriages.
McCain: Opposes constitutional amendment to ban it. Says same-sex couples should be allowed to enter into legal agreements for insurance and similar benefits, and states should decide about marriage. Supports the Defense of Marriage Act.
Baldwin: Believes marriage is between one man and one woman. Supports gay-marriage amendment but feels marriage is the concern of religion and not government.
Barr: Opposes constitutional amendment to ban it and says states should decide.
McKinney: Supports right of individuals to choose partners regardless of sexual orientation. Supports recognition of equal rights to gay, lesbian, transsexual or bisexual citizens in housing, jobs, medical benefits, marriage and child custody.
Nader: Supports equal rights for gays and lesbians. Supports same-sex marriage and opposes federal marriage amendment.
GUN CONTROL
Obama: Voted to leave gun makers and dealers open to lawsuits. Also, as Illinois state lawmaker, supported ban on all forms of semiautomatic weapons and tighter state restrictions generally on firearms. Supports Second Amendment.
McCain: Voted against ban on assault-type weapons but in favor of requiring background checks at gun shows. Voted to shield gun-makers and dealers from civil suits. Supports Second Amendment.
Baldwin: Opposes gun control.
Barr: Opposes any restrictions.
McKinney: Supports the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and a waiting period and records search before gun sales.
Nader: Supports strong law enforcement to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, gun-owner education and licensing, and the banning of some weapons.
HEALTH CARE
Obama: Wants mandatory coverage for children, no mandate for adults. Aims for universal coverage by requiring employers to share costs of insuring workers and by offering coverage similar to that in plan for federal employees. Would raise taxes on wealthier families to pay the cost.
McCain: Wants $2,500 refundable tax credit for individuals, $5,000 for families, to make health insurance more affordable. In gaining the tax credit, workers could not deduct the portion of their workplace health insurance paid by their employers. Would not mandate universal coverage.
Baldwin: Opposes government regulation and subsidies. Supports proposals for employee-controlled "family coverage" health-insurance plans based on cash-value life insurance principles.
Barr: Individuals could determine level of health care, insurance coverage, providers and treatment they want, including end-of-life decisions.
McKinney: Supports universal-access, single-payer system with lifetime benefits and the freedom to choose a health-care provider.
Nader: Favors single-payer public health insurance system coupled with private delivery of services.
IMMIGRATION
Obama: Voted for 2006 bill offering legal status to illegal immigrants subject to conditions, including English proficiency and payment of back taxes and fines. Voted for border fence.
McCain: Sponsored 2006 bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S., work and apply to become legal residents after learning English, paying fines and back taxes, and clearing a background check. Now says he would secure the border first. Voted for border fence.
Baldwin: Opposes amnesty, social services or path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Would end birthright citizenship. Would seal borders through construction of a border fence and/or use of whatever force is necessary.
Barr: Would deter illegal border crossings and end government benefits and services for illegal immigrants. Supports constitutional amendment to prevent children born to illegal immigrants from automatically becoming citizens.
McKinney: Supports amnesty program and path to documentation for illegal immigrants. Encourages improved relations with Canada and Mexico and supports border passes for all citizens of Mexico and Canada whose identity can be verified.
Nader: Supports raising minimum wage to make jobs more attractive to American workers and providing work permits for people who come to work for short periods.
IRAN
Obama: Initially said he would meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions; now says he is not sure "Ahmadinejad is the right person to meet with right now." Says direct diplomacy with Iranian leaders would give U.S. more credibility to press for tougher international sanctions. Says he would intensify diplomatic pressure on Tehran before Israel feels the need to take unilateral military action against Iranian nuclear facilities.
McCain: Favors tougher sanctions. Opposes direct high-level talks with Ahmadinejad. Considers military action an option but would consult with congressional leaders before taking action.
Baldwin: Does not see Iran as threat to the U.S.
Barr: Favors diplomacy and free trade instead of military action.
McKinney: Opposed President Bush's threats to attack and opposes war with Iran.
Nader: Supports full-court diplomacy.
IRAQ
Obama: Spoke against war at start and opposed troop increase. Voted against one major military spending bill in May 2007; otherwise voted in favor of money to support the war. Says his plan would complete withdrawal of combat troops in 16 months. Initially said a timetable for completing withdrawal would be irresponsible without knowing what facts he would face in office.
McCain: Opposes scheduling a troop withdrawal, saying latest strategy is succeeding. Supported decision to go to war but was early critic of the manner in which administration pursued it. Was key backer of the troop increase. Willing to have permanent U.S. peacekeeping forces in Iraq.
Baldwin: Opposes the war in Iraq. Favors a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Barr: Opposed U.S. occupation of Iraq. Opposes use of taxpayer money to pay for rebuilding foreign nations. Calls for end to the war and withdrawal of U.S. troops as quickly as possible.
McKinney: Supports immediate withdrawal of troops and advisers, and cutting off all war funding.
Nader: Proposes withdrawal of troops from Iraq within six months.
SOCIAL SECURITY
Obama: Would raise payroll tax on wealthiest by applying it to portion of income over $250,000 (now, payroll tax is applied to income up to $102,000). Rules out raising retirement age for benefits.
McCain: Supports supplementing Social Security with individual investment accounts. Prefers slowing benefits to raising taxes.
Baldwin: Supports phasing out Social Security system.
Barr: Says government should emphasize private retirement accounts. Also would allow new workers entering Social Security to leave the entitlement system.
McKinney: Opposes privatization of Social Security.
Nader: Opposes privatization through personal Social Security accounts.
TAXES
Obama: Would raise income taxes on wealthiest and their capital gains and dividends taxes, and raise corporate taxes. Backs $80 billion in tax breaks mainly for poor workers and elderly, including tripling Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credit for larger families. Would eliminate tax-filing requirement for older workers making less than $50,000. Supports mortgage-interest credit for lower-income homeowners who do not take the mortgage-interest deduction because they do not itemize their deductions.
McCain: Voted against Bush tax-cut laws but now says those tax cuts, expiring in 2010, should be permanent. Proposes cutting corporate tax rate to 25 percent. Would double child deduction from $3,500 to $7,000 and repeal alternative minimum tax. Would raise exemption on estate tax to $5 million and reduce the tax rate to 15 percent. Proposes a three-fifths majority in Congress be required to raise taxes.
Baldwin: Would end income, inheritance and property taxes and implement a 10 percent tax on all imports.
Barr: Supports reforming the tax code and reducing Americans' tax burden, including the elimination of the estate tax and capital-gains tax. Wants to reduce government spending and corporate taxes.
McKinney: Supports progressive rates on sales, corporate and income taxes that shift the burden from lower-income citizens. Supports the elimination of tax loopholes.
Nader: Says the tax code is skewed toward the wealthy and corporations, and reform should pinch basic necessities the least.
SOURCES: The Associated Press, ontheissues.org, cnn.com, news
archives, candidates' Web sites
LOAD-DATE: November 6, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
November 2, 2008 Sunday
Metro Edition
POLL SAYS RACE STILL TIGHT IN VIRGINIA
BYLINE: By Michael Sluss mike.sluss@roanoke.com (804) 697-1585
SECTION: VIRGINIA; Pg. B1
The presidential race in Virginia remains tight, and undecided voters hold the key to the outcome, according to a new statewide poll conducted for The Roanoke Times.
Democrat Barack Obama holds a slim lead over Republican John McCain as both candidates make a final push to win Virginia's 13 electoral votes. Obama is making an all-out effort to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Virginia since 1964, but the latest poll suggests he has not closed the deal.
Obama leads McCain by 3 percentage points -- 47 percent to 44 percent -- in the survey conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. But 9 percent of the voters remain undecided in the closing days of the race, a much larger percentage than in final pre-election polls Mason-Dixon has conducted in recent presidential elections. Obama does have a 50 percent to 39 percent advantage among independent voters, according to the poll.
The results come from a telephone survey of 625 registered voters conducted Wednesday and Thursday. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
Brad Coker, the managing director of the Mason-Dixon poll, noted that the percentage of undecided voters is similar to the 8 percent undecided figure in the final pre-election survey conducted for Virginia's 1989 governor's race. Democrat Doug Wilder narrowly won that election, becoming the nation's first elected black governor.
The new poll differs little from a Mason-Dixon survey conducted in mid-October that had Obama ahead by 2 points. But several polls by other firms have Obama ahead by larger margins, fueling optimism among Democrats that their candidate can grab a traditionally red state.
Obama has made 10 visits to Virginia since the end of the primary season, including a visit to Roanoke on Oct. 17. The Democratic senator from Illinois will finish his campaign with a Monday night rally in Manassas. He has flooded the state with staff and volunteers and has spent heavily on television advertising.
"They have really given us a lot of attention, which is great," said Gov. Tim Kaine, a national co-chairman of Obama's campaign.
Kaine said Thursday that Obama has made an effective case to Virginians who are worried about the economy and the country's global reputation. But because of Virginia's history of backing Republican presidential candidates, Kaine said, Obama should be considered an underdog.
McCain, who considers Virginia a must-win state, made stops Saturday in Newport News and Fairfax County. His running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appeared in Henrico County on Saturday, after making three Virginia stops on Monday, including one in Salem. McCain will hold an airport rally near Bristol, Tenn., on Monday morning, an event aimed at attracting Southwest Virginia supporters.
McCain has a 17-point advantage in Southwest Virginia and solid leads in the Shenandoah Valley, Central Virginia and Southside Virginia.
Obama leads McCain by a ratio of nearly 2 to 1 in vote-rich Northern Virginia, a region where Democrats have gained strength in recent years. He also has a 10-point advantage in Hampton Roads, a region with a heavy military presence and one that both campaigns consider critical.
McCain's campaign has zeroed in on defense and national security issues in the past week, attempting to tie Obama to recent comments by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. Frank told a Massachusetts newspaper that congressional Democrats could seek to cut defense spending by 25 percent, an amount that McCain's Virginia supporters said could be devastating to the state's economy.
"We're going to be talking a lot about that these last few days," said Attorney General Bob McDonnell, a McCain supporter, during a Friday conference call.
Retiring U.S. Sen. John Warner, an early McCain supporter, raised the issue repeatedly last week. He also spoke out in a McCain radio ad, saying defense cuts "will weaken Virginia's economy, weaken national defense."
Obama's campaign swiftly responded with a television ad declaring that Obama would increase defense spending, add 65,000 troops to the Army and recruit 27,000 Marines.
LOAD-DATE: November 4, 2008
GRAPHIC: photo - 1. SAM DEAN The Roanoke Times - Elisha Jones shields her eyes from Saturday's sun while attending a Get Out The Vote rally by the Northwest City Democratic Caucus. 2. Associated Press - Supporters cheer Republican presidential candidate John McCain at a rally at Christopher Newport University in Newport News. 3. graphic - Mason-Dixon Virginia Poll
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 2, 2008 Sunday
COMPASS Edition
Reasons vary among first timers
By Lia Russell
The Virginian-Pilot
Duevyn Cooke has big plans for his future.
This time next year he'd like to be studying aeronautical engineering at the University of Miami.
"I'm pretty good at math and I'd like to make a lot of money," said the 18-year-old Maury High School senior.
But while Cooke envisions a lucrative future, he doesn't plan to forget his roots. "My family's not on welfare or food stamps," said the Park Place resident. "But I'd say I come from a lower-income family."
And this year, as Cooke prepares to cast his first ballot in a presidential election, he thinks about many of his friends who do depend on public assistance.
Along with ending the war in Iraq, poverty is one of the issues that compelled Cooke to register to vote this year.
"I tend to favor the Democrats," said Cooke of his political affiliation. "It's not that I think the Republicans would eliminate welfare or food stamps, I just don't feel that it's a priority for them."
Cooke follows the campaigns through discussions with relatives and in his American government class at school.
"He's a very smart young man," said Maria O'Hearn, Cooke's government teacher. "And he's a very hard worker."
The former Maury wrestling champion and Tampa Bay Buccaneers football fan was recently recognized by the National Merit Scholarship Program as one of three students in his class for exceptionally high achievement in the PSATs, taken his junior year.
In addition to his scholastic success - he's carrying a 3.8 GPA - Cooke puts in about 25 hours a week as a cashier at Bottom Dollar Food on Colley Avenue, where he's learning life lessons in responsibility and the meaning of payroll "withholding."
Is he worried about a new president raising taxes?
"People always complain about (taxes)," said Cooke. "But it is our responsibility to fund our government. So no, taxes don't stress me out."
Besides voting on Tuesday, Cooke will be working at the polls in an initiative instigated by the city registrar's office to bring more technologically savvy young people into the process.
"I joke a lot of my friends because they're not old enough to vote," said Cooke, who turned 18 on Oct. 24. "I'm lucky that my birthday came just in time to vote. It's a right we have that people in a lot of countries are still fighting to get. I don't understand why someone who can vote doesn't. Every vote matters."
Lia Russell, 222-5829, lia.russell@pilotonline.com Evon Austin was born only 13 years after American women gained the right to vote. Yet, she has never done so in a presidential election - until now.
At age 75, Austin cast her absentee ballot on Oct. 17, the first time she's voted for the nation's chief executive.
"I voted for city government when I lived in Chesapeake," said the downtown Portsmouth resident, grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of one. " I just never did vote for president."
While Austin's Christian beliefs dictate that "His will will be done, no matter what we want," she understands that civic responsibility includes voting.
"I've been very sick the past few years and couldn't get around to it," said Austin, who is affectionately known as "Big Mama" at Portsmouth's Senior Station where she often socializes with friends.
Austin grew up in rural Alabama, picking cotton near Montgomery. She remembers when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955 and when National Guard troops safeguarded the integration of the University of Alabama in 1963.
To Austin, having a black man, albeit of mixed race, run for president is an event she never thought she'd see.
Issues that concern her today include health care and the rising costs of food and prescription medicine .
"I've seen our ups and I've seen our downs," she said. "I believe things can get better." Lia Russell, 222-5829, lia.russell@pilotonline.com
Virginia Beach teen Kayce Herrod may be a minority in her age group. Going into Tuesday's election, she's still undecided.
At age 18, she is one of the young voters both major candidates have tried to woo the past several months.
Although Herrod is unsure who she will vote for, she's certain she will participate .
"It's just a huge turning point," said Herrod, who will attend Old Dominion University in the spring.
The war in Iraq weighs on her mind. Herrod said she wants the troops to come home but is concerned about the consequences. She feels strongly about supporting stem cell research and is pro-choice.
She's also ardent about protecting the environment. "Those issues I can actually do something about," she said. Rita Frankenberry, 222-5102, rita. frankenberry@pilotonline.com
Pompeyo "Shorty" Castaneda and his wife, Jeanette, are following the debates and studying the candidates. Now these two Isle of Wight residents are about to become first-time voters.
"Shorty" Castaneda, 50 and owner of a roofing business, worked for years to gain his citizenship. He's been living in the United States since 1977.
"It took a long time because I had never stepped into a school," he said. "They gave me a booklet to learn about the history of the U.S. It was intriguing - the more you learn the more you like it."
His favorite U.S. leader? Ronald Reagan, who was president when Castaneda, a native of Matehuala, Mexico, got his first green card.
Jeanette Castaneda, 46, was born in the U.S. but had never registered to vote - until November 2007, one month after her husband applied for citizenship. "His enthusiasm in wanting to vote inspired me," she said .
Shorty Castaneda received his citizenship on Sept. 4 . "I'm hoping the good Lord will give me the sense to vote for the right one," he said. Phyllis Speidell, 222-5556 phyllis.speidell@pilotonline.com
Deborah Cole doesn't want to be someone who complains but never votes.
"I want to do my best to be heard," said the Chesapeake resident soon to turn 20.
Her main concern in choosing a president is the economy. "If people don't have money to spend, then businesses don't make money, either, and that affects jobs," said Cole, who works in the service department at Priority Toyota. "I know of people who are taking second jobs to take care of their mortgages and bills."
The war in Iraq is another of Cole's top issues . "I have close friends and family who are in the military. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to see them come home," she said. " But if we pulled out of Iraq altogether, I'm not sure we wouldn't get attacked again. "
TV ads have done nothing to help her decide . "Obama says McCain is doing this, while McCain says Obama is doing the same thing," she said.
Cole's advice: check the congressional voting records . Devon Hubbard Sorlie, 222-5202, devon.sorlie@pilotonline.com
Evon Austin was born only 13 years after American women were granted the right to vote. Yet, she has never done so in a presidential election.
At age 75, Austin voted for the first time this year for the nation's chief executive. She cast her absentee ballot on Oct. 17.
"I voted for city government when I lived in Chesapeake," said the downtown Portsmouth resident. "But I just never did vote for president."
The grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of one said she feels that voting is a privilege.
While Austin's Christian beliefs dictate that "His will will be done, no matter what we want," she understands that civic responsibility incorporates voting.
"I've been very sick the past few years and couldn't get around to it," said Austin, who is affectionately known as "Big Mama" at Portsmouth's Senior Station, where she spends several days a week socializing with friends.
"Everyone knows Big Mama," said Senior Station recreational aide Shea Coleman. "She's well loved here and looks out for everyone."
Austin grew up in rural Alabama, picking cotton in a town near Montgomery.
She remembers racial strife when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955 and when National Guard troops were called out to safeguard the integration of the University of Alabama in 1963.
To Austin, having a black man, albeit of mixed-race, run for president is an event she never thought she'd live to see.
"But I'm a person that holds no animosity," she said of the racial discrimination she experienced in her early life.
Issues that concern her today include health care and the rising costs of prescription medicine and food.
"I've seen our ups and I've seen our downs," she said. "I believe things can get better."
Lia Russell, 222-5829, lia.russell@pilotonline.com
Eighteen-year-old Virginia Beach resident Kayce Herrod may be somewhat of an anomaly during Tuesday's presidential election.
Herrod is a minority in her age group. She is an undecided voter.
She is one of the young voters both candidates have tried to woo during the past several months.
Although Herrod is unsure who she will vote for, she's certain she will participate in this historic election.
"It's just a huge turning point," said Herrod, who will attend Old Dominion University in the spring.
The war in Iraq weighs heavily on her mind. Herrod said she wants the troops to come home, but is concerned about the consequences. She feels strongly about supporting stem cell research and is pro-choice.
She's also ardent about protecting the environment .
"Those issues I can actually do something about," she said.
Rita Frankenberry, 222-5102, rita.frankenberry@pilotonline.com
Pompeyo "Shorty" Castaneda and his wife, Jeanette, are following the debates and studying the candidates . These two Isle of Wight residents are about to become first-time voters.
"Shorty" Castaneda, 50 and owner of a roofing business, worked for years to achieve his citizenship. He's been living in the United States since 1977.
"It took a long time because I had never stepped into a school," he said. "They gave me a booklet to learn about the history of the U.S. It was intriguing - the more you learn the more you like it."
His favorite U.S. leader? Ronald Reagan. He was president when Shorty Castaneda, a native of Matehuala, Mexico, got his first green card.
Jeanette Castaneda , 46, was born in the U.S. but had never registered to vote - until this year. " His enthusiasm in wanting to vote inspired me," said Jeanette, 46.
She registered to vote in November 2007, one month after her husband applied for citizenship. Shorty Castaneda received his citizenship on Sept. 4 of this year.
"I'm hoping the good Lord will give me the sense to vote for the right one," he said.
Phyllis Speidell, 222-5556
phyllis.speidell@pilotonline.com
Although Deborah Cole was old enough to vote in November 2007 and spring 2008 state and city elections, she didn't register June of this year, in time for this month's presidential election.
"I wanted to make sure my vote counted for this election," said Cole, a Chesapeake resident who is almost 20. "When people complain about the president or those running, I always ask if they voted. When they tell me 'no,' that they feel their vote won't make a difference, I ask them: 'So if you didn't vote, then why are you complaining?' I don't want to be one of those people. I want to do my best to be heard."
A 2007 graduate of Oscar Smith High School, Cole works in the service department at Priority Toyota. Her main concern in choosing a president is the economy.
"If people don't have money to spend, then businesses don't make money, either, and that affects jobs," she said. "I know of people who are taking second jobs to take care of their mortgages and bills."
Another top issue, for her, is the war in Iraq.
"I have close friends and family who are in the military. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to see them come home, but if we pulled out of Iraq altogether, I'm not sure we wouldn't get attacked again. But I miss my friends and family and I worry about them."
TV commercials have done nothing to help her decide how to vote.
"Obama says McCain is doing this, while McCain says Obama is doing the same thing," Cole said.
She suggested doing research to find out how Sen. John McCain voted while in office, and what Sen. Barack Obama has done in his career.
"Base your vote off that information," she said. "Not what they say in their commercials."
Devon Hubbard Sorlie, 222-5202
devon.sorlie@pilotonline.com
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
GRAPHIC: Evon Austin, Portsmouth Kayce Herrod, Virginia Beach Pompeyo and Jeanette Castaneda, Suffolk Deborah Cole, Chesapeake
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 2, 2008 Sunday
CLIPPER FR Edition
Reasons vary among first-timers
Duevyn Cooke
Norfolk
This time next year, Duevyn Cooke, 18, sees himself studying aeronautical engineering at the University of Miami.
But right now, as he prepares to vote for president for the first time, Cooke is thinking about many of his friends who depend on public assistance.
"My family's not on welfare or food stamps," said the Maury High School senior. "But I'd say I come from a lower-income family."
Along with ending the war in Iraq, poverty is one of the issues that compelled Cooke to register to vote this year.
"I tend to favor the Democrats," Cooke said of his politics. "It's not that I think the Republicans would eliminate welfare or food stamps, I just don't feel that it's a priority for them."
In addition to his scholastic success - he carries a 3.8 GPA - Cooke puts in about 25 hours a week as a cashier at a Bottom Dollar Food store, where he's learning the meaning of payroll "withholding."
Is he worried about a new president raising taxes?
"It is our responsibility to fund our government. So no, taxes don't stress me out," Cooke said.
- Lia Russell
lecia woodhouse
virginia beach
A youthful lapse of judgment 18 years ago tagged Lecia Woodhouse with a felony conviction for credit card fraud, forgery and theft. Later, she registered to vote but saw her application rejected because she is a felon.
"I was told I would have to go through the courts to get my rights restored, and at that time, I sure didn't want to see any more courts," Woodhouse, 43, said.
But every election reminded her of her felon status. "I felt embarrassed," she said. "I didn't want to tell people I can't vote."
Woodhouse signed up to get her rights restored after NAACP volunteers visited her Virginia Beach neighborhood this summer. Approval came Sept. 17.
"I went down to register and got my card within a couple of days. I'm going to be the first one in line to vote," she said.
- Devon Hubbard Sorlie
jeanette AND POMPEYO castaneda
isle of wight
Pompeyo "Shorty" Castaneda and his wife, Jeanette, are following the debates and studying the candidates. Now these two Isle of Wight residents are about to become first-time voters.
"Shorty" Castaneda, 50, an owner of a roofing business, worked for years to gain his citizenship. He's been living in the United States since 1977.
"It took a long time because I had never stepped into a school," he said. "They gave me a booklet to learn about the history of the U.S. It was intriguing - the more you learn the more you like it."
His favorite U.S. leader? Ronald Reagan, who was president when Castaneda, a native of Matehuala, Mexico, got his first green card.
Jeanette Castaneda, 46, was born in the U.S. but never registered to vote - until November 2007, one month after her husband applied for citizenship. "His enthusiasm in wanting to vote inspired me," she said.
Shorty Castaneda received his citizenship on Sept. 4. "I'm hoping the good Lord will give me the sense to vote for the right one," he said.
- Phyllis Speidell
Evon Austin
portsmouth
Evon Austin was born only 13 years after American women gained the right to vote. Yet, she has never done so in a presidential election - until now.
At age 75, Austin cast her absentee ballot on Oct. 17, the first time she has voted for the nation's chief executive.
"I voted for city government when I lived in Chesapeake," said the downtown Portsmouth resident, grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of one. "I just never did vote for president."
While Austin's Christian beliefs dictate that "His will will be done, no matter what we want," she understands that civic responsibility includes voting.
"I've been very sick the past few years and couldn't get around to it," said Austin, who is affectionately known as "Big Mama" at Portsmouth's Senior Station where she often socializes with friends.
Austin grew up in rural Alabama, picking cotton near Montgomery. She remembers when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955 and when National Guard troops safeguarded the integration of the University of Alabama in 1963.
To Austin, having a black man, albeit of mixed race, run for president is an event she never thought she'd see.
Issues that concern her today include health care and the rising costs of food and prescription medicine.
"I've seen our ups and I've seen our downs," she said. "I believe things can get better."
- Lia Russell By Devon Hubbard Sorlie
The Virginian-Pilot
Although Deborah Cole could have voted in last year's 2007 elections and the fall 2008 Chesapeake city elections, this nearly 20-year-old Greenbrier resident made sure she registered in June so she could vote in the 2008 presidential elections.
"I wanted to make sure my vote counted for this election," Cole said. "When people complain about the president or those running, I always ask if they voted. When they tell me 'no,' that they feel their vote won't make a difference, I ask them: 'So if you didn't vote, then why are you complaining?' I don't want to be one of those people. I want to do my best to be heard."
A 2007 graduate of Oscar Smith High School, Cole works in the service department at Priority Toyota in Greenbrier. Her main concern in choosing a president is the economy.
"If people don't have money to spend, then businesses don't make money, either, and that affects jobs," she said. "I know of people who are taking second jobs to take care of their mortgages and bills."
Another top issue is how to deal with the war in Iraq.
"I have close friends and family who are in the military. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to see them come home, but if we pulled out of Iraq all together, I'm not sure we wouldn't get attacked again. But I miss my friends and family and I worry about them."
The commercials by either candidate have done nothing to help Cole make a decision about either man.
"Obama says McCain is doing this, while McCain says Obama is doing the same thing," Cole said. "The vote gets down to simply who do you like more. People say Bush isn't good at making speeches. I don't care how good you are at making speeches. People shouldn't be looking at that in making their decisions."
She suggested doing research to find out what the candidates supported while in office.
"Base your vote off that information," she said. "Not what they say in their commercials."
Devon Hubbard Sorlie, 222-5202 or devon.sorlie@pilotonline.com
For more information for and about first-time voters, visit http: //hamptonroads.com/firstvoter.
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 2, 2008 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Giving readers a voice, weeding out 'turf'
"YOUR VIEWS," The Virginian-Pilot's letters to the editor, is the oldest marketplace of ideas in Hampton Roads. In its first weeks on the newsstands beginning in December 1865, The Norfolk Virginian gave its readers a forum. What began with the intermittent publication of letters is now a daily exchange of ideas about the politics, passions and peculiarities of our age.
Correspondence through letters, from regular contributors in far-flung places like Hampton and Suffolk, was a principal source of news in The Virginian. However, what appears to be the first unsolicited letter was published on the front page on Jan. 19, 1866 (surrounded by advertising for licorice from Naples, cider vinegar from Isle of Wight and Hembold's Extract Buchu, an elixir for "enfeebled and delicate constitutions of both sexes").
The writer, who identified himself as a businessman in Weldon, southwest of Blacksburg, was designated only as H. The writer counted himself among Weldon's "leading and influential citizens," several of whom were partners in a newly established construction company with plans to build houses and commercial structures. But finding an adequate labor force among his village's 200 residents, he lamented, "is yet unsatisfactory and unreliable."
In the 142 years since, letters from readers have become a daily mainstay. Although in-house marketing studies don't track readership of the letters, the volume suggests a considerable following. An average of 90 letters a day reach The Virginian-Pilot by mail, e-mail or fax. That doubles and sometimes triples when a huge news event like the presidential race is under way. About 50 to 60 of those letters are published every week.
Editorial page editor Dennis Hartig oversees which letters are published. The criteria, he explained, favor letters that advance ideas and arguments on topical issues. Contrarian views are welcome, but letters must be well written, concise and free of name-calling and profanity. The writer must agree to editing, and his or her name and hometown must appear with the letter.
The integrity of the page, in Hartig's thinking, relies on how accurately it represents the sentiments and original expressions of Hampton Roads residents. That is why so-called "turf letters," as in AstroTurf, disturb him.
These letters, written as part of coordinated, faux grass roots campaigns, usually promote a cause. Organizations or public relations firms then make the letters available to supporters who sign their names to messages they did not write -- but nonetheless believe in.
The online magazine, Salon.com, recently published a story by someone who described the day she spent writing letters to the editor in John McCain's Virginia headquarters in Arlington. The missives were later circulated at local campaign headquarters, where the party faithful could sign and submit them to their local newspapers. Several online responses posted on Salon.com insisted that Barack Obama's campaign ran a similar operation.
Hartig takes pride in his ability to spot turf mail but explains it's often akin to playing third base in the dark. "You hear the crack of the bat and know the ball is coming your way," he said. "So you reach down and hope not to come up empty-handed."
While he's quite certain no turf letters have appeared among the dozens of published campaign-related comments, Hartig acknowledges he could be wrong. Indeed, one such letter on energy circulated by the Sierra Club recently eluded his scrutiny. Variations of that letter appeared in at least 16 other newspapers across the country. Each one applauded the unlikely alliance between the Sierra Club and oilman T. Boone Pickens, who is calling on America to kick its dependence on foreign oil in favor of clean, home-grown energy alternatives.
The letter went undetected in part because it was signed by a local resident whose prior submissions had been printed and whose arguments had been thoughtful and well-reasoned, Hartig said.
While Hartig was piqued at this effort to hoodwink the newspaper, the reader who signed it had no inkling of the ethical breach his letter represented.
Hartig says any letter that is not the work of the individual whose name appears on it is a subterfuge that compromises the integrity of the letters forum.
It's amusing to ponder whether H., writing from that distant corner of the commonwealth, asked every other Virginia editor for space in "your excellent journal." Could H.'s unsolicited submission have been a 19th-century forerunner of "turf"?
Joyce Hoffmann, the public editor, is an associate professor in the English Department at Old Dominion University. Reach her at (757) 446-2475 or public.editor@pilotonline.com
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 2, 2008 Sunday
CURRENTS/PORTSLIVNG Edition
Reasons vary among first timers
SECTION: SPORTSU; Pg. CU8
By Lia Russell
The Virginian-Pilot
Evon Austin was born only 13 years after American women gained the right to vote. Yet, she has never done so in a presidential election - until now.
At age 75, Austin cast her absentee ballot on Oct. 17, the first time she's voted for the nation's chief executive.
"I voted for city government when I lived in Chesapeake," said the downtown Portsmouth resident. "But I just never did vote for president."
The grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of one said she feels that voting is a privilege.
While Austin's Christian beliefs dictate that "His will will be done, no matter what we want," she understands that civic responsibility includes voting.
"I've been very sick the past few years and couldn't get around to it," said Austin, who is affectionately known as "Big Mama" at Portsmouth's Senior Station, where she spends several days a week socializing with friends.
"Everyone knows Big Mama," said Senior Station recreational aide Shea Coleman. "She's well loved here and looks out for everyone."
Austin grew up in rural Alabama, picking cotton in a town near Montgomery.
She remembers racial strife when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955 and when National Guard troops were called out to safeguard the integration of the University of Alabama in 1963.
To Austin, having a black man, albeit of mixed-race, run for president is an event she never thought she'd live to see.
"But I'm a person that holds no animosity," she said of the racial discrimination she experienced in her early life.
Issues that concern her today include health care and the rising costs of food and prescription medicine .
"I've seen our ups and I've seen our downs," she said. "I believe things can get better."
Lia Russell, 222-5829, lia.russell@pilotonline.com Evon Austin was born only 13 years after American women gained the right to vote. Yet, she has never done so in a presidential election - until now.
At age 75, Austin cast her absentee ballot on Oct. 17, the first time she's voted for the nation's chief executive.
"I voted for city government when I lived in Chesapeake," said the downtown Portsmouth resident, grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of one. " I just never did vote for president."
While Austin's Christian beliefs dictate that "His will will be done, no matter what we want," she understands that civic responsibility includes voting.
"I've been very sick the past few years and couldn't get around to it," said Austin, who is affectionately known as "Big Mama" at Portsmouth's Senior Station where she often socializes with friends.
Austin grew up in rural Alabama, picking cotton near Montgomery. She remembers when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955 and when National Guard troops safeguarded the integration of the University of Alabama in 1963.
To Austin, having a black man, albeit of mixed race, run for president is an event she never thought she'd see.
Issues that concern her today include health care and the rising costs of food and prescription medicine .
"I've seen our ups and I've seen our downs," she said. "I believe things can get better." Lia Russell, 222-5829, lia.russell@pilotonline.com
Virginia Beach teen Kayce Herrod may be a minority in her age group. Going into Tuesday's election, she's still undecided.
At age 18, she is one of the young voters both major candidates have tried to woo the past several months.
Although Herrod is unsure who she will vote for, she's certain she will participate .
"It's just a huge turning point," said Herrod, who will attend Old Dominion University in the spring.
The war in Iraq weighs on her mind. Herrod said she wants the troops to come home but is concerned about the consequences. She feels strongly about supporting stem cell research and is pro-choice.
She's also ardent about protecting the environment. "Those issues I can actually do something about," she said. Rita Frankenberry, 222-5102, rita. frankenberry@pilotonline.com
Pompeyo "Shorty" Castaneda and his wife, Jeanette, are following the debates and studying the candidates. Now these two Isle of Wight residents are about to become first-time voters.
"Shorty" Castaneda, 50 and owner of a roofing business, worked for years to gain his citizenship. He's been living in the United States since 1977.
"It took a long time because I had never stepped into a school," he said. "They gave me a booklet to learn about the history of the U.S. It was intriguing - the more you learn the more you like it."
His favorite U.S. leader? Ronald Reagan, who was president when Castaneda, a native of Matehuala, Mexico, got his first green card.
Jeanette Castaneda, 46, was born in the U.S. but had never registered to vote - until November 2007, one month after her husband applied for citizenship. "His enthusiasm in wanting to vote inspired me," she said .
Shorty Castaneda received his citizenship on Sept. 4 . "I'm hoping the good Lord will give me the sense to vote for the right one," he said. Phyllis Speidell, 222-5556 phyllis.speidell@pilotonline.com
Deborah Cole doesn't want to be someone who complains but never votes.
"I want to do my best to be heard," said the Chesapeake resident soon to turn 20.
Her main concern in choosing a president is the economy. "If people don't have money to spend, then businesses don't make money, either, and that affects jobs," said Cole, who works in the service department at Priority Toyota. "I know of people who are taking second jobs to take care of their mortgages and bills."
The war in Iraq is another of Cole's top issues . "I have close friends and family who are in the military. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to see them come home," she said. " But if we pulled out of Iraq altogether, I'm not sure we wouldn't get attacked again. "
TV ads have done nothing to help her decide . "Obama says McCain is doing this, while McCain says Obama is doing the same thing," she said.
Cole's advice: check the congressional voting records . Devon Hubbard Sorlie, 222-5202, devon.sorlie@pilotonline.com
Evon Austin was born only 13 years after American women were granted the right to vote. Yet, she has never done so in a presidential election.
At age 75, Austin voted for the first time this year for the nation's chief executive. She cast her absentee ballot on Oct. 17.
"I voted for city government when I lived in Chesapeake," said the downtown Portsmouth resident. "But I just never did vote for president."
The grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of one said she feels that voting is a privilege.
While Austin's Christian beliefs dictate that "His will will be done, no matter what we want," she understands that civic responsibility incorporates voting.
"I've been very sick the past few years and couldn't get around to it," said Austin, who is affectionately known as "Big Mama" at Portsmouth's Senior Station, where she spends several days a week socializing with friends.
"Everyone knows Big Mama," said Senior Station recreational aide Shea Coleman. "She's well loved here and looks out for everyone."
Austin grew up in rural Alabama, picking cotton in a town near Montgomery.
She remembers racial strife when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955 and when National Guard troops were called out to safeguard the integration of the University of Alabama in 1963.
To Austin, having a black man, albeit of mixed-race, run for president is an event she never thought she'd live to see.
"But I'm a person that holds no animosity," she said of the racial discrimination she experienced in her early life.
Issues that concern her today include health care and the rising costs of prescription medicine and food.
"I've seen our ups and I've seen our downs," she said. "I believe things can get better."
Lia Russell, 222-5829, lia.russell@pilotonline.com
Eighteen-year-old Virginia Beach resident Kayce Herrod may be somewhat of an anomaly during Tuesday's presidential election.
Herrod is a minority in her age group. She is an undecided voter.
She is one of the young voters both candidates have tried to woo during the past several months.
Although Herrod is unsure who she will vote for, she's certain she will participate in this historic election.
"It's just a huge turning point," said Herrod, who will attend Old Dominion University in the spring.
The war in Iraq weighs heavily on her mind. Herrod said she wants the troops to come home, but is concerned about the consequences. She feels strongly about supporting stem cell research and is pro-choice.
She's also ardent about protecting the environment .
"Those issues I can actually do something about," she said.
Rita Frankenberry, 222-5102, rita.frankenberry@pilotonline.com
Pompeyo "Shorty" Castaneda and his wife, Jeanette, are following the debates and studying the candidates . These two Isle of Wight residents are about to become first-time voters.
"Shorty" Castaneda, 50 and owner of a roofing business, worked for years to achieve his citizenship. He's been living in the United States since 1977.
"It took a long time because I had never stepped into a school," he said. "They gave me a booklet to learn about the history of the U.S. It was intriguing - the more you learn the more you like it."
His favorite U.S. leader? Ronald Reagan. He was president when Shorty Castaneda, a native of Matehuala, Mexico, got his first green card.
Jeanette Castaneda , 46, was born in the U.S. but had never registered to vote - until this year. " His enthusiasm in wanting to vote inspired me," said Jeanette, 46.
She registered to vote in November 2007, one month after her husband applied for citizenship. Shorty Castaneda received his citizenship on Sept. 4 of this year.
"I'm hoping the good Lord will give me the sense to vote for the right one," he said.
Phyllis Speidell, 222-5556
phyllis.speidell@pilotonline.com
Although Deborah Cole was old enough to vote in November 2007 and spring 2008 state and city elections, she didn't register June of this year, in time for this month's presidential election.
"I wanted to make sure my vote counted for this election," said Cole, a Chesapeake resident who is almost 20. "When people complain about the president or those running, I always ask if they voted. When they tell me 'no,' that they feel their vote won't make a difference, I ask them: 'So if you didn't vote, then why are you complaining?' I don't want to be one of those people. I want to do my best to be heard."
A 2007 graduate of Oscar Smith High School, Cole works in the service department at Priority Toyota. Her main concern in choosing a president is the economy.
"If people don't have money to spend, then businesses don't make money, either, and that affects jobs," she said. "I know of people who are taking second jobs to take care of their mortgages and bills."
Another top issue, for her, is the war in Iraq.
"I have close friends and family who are in the military. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to see them come home, but if we pulled out of Iraq altogether, I'm not sure we wouldn't get attacked again. But I miss my friends and family and I worry about them."
TV commercials have done nothing to help her decide how to vote.
"Obama says McCain is doing this, while McCain says Obama is doing the same thing," Cole said.
She suggested doing research to find out how Sen. John McCain voted while in office, and what Sen. Barack Obama has done in his career.
"Base your vote off that information," she said. "Not what they say in their commercials."
Devon Hubbard Sorlie, 222-5202
devon.sorlie@pilotonline.com
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
GRAPHIC: Evon Austin, Portsmouth Kayce Herrod, Virginia Beach Pompeyo and Jeanette Castaneda, Suffolk Deborah Cole, Chesapeake
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 2, 2008 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Election lessons for kids and adults
"I DON'T WANT to live in a cardboard box!" my daughter wailed as she entered the kitchen one recent evening. After a quick mental review of any threats I may have issued over her messy room that week, I asked her what in the world she was talking about. Apparently, a friend at school had announced that her dad said we would all be living in cardboard boxes if a particular candidate won the Nov. 4 presidential election.
After reassuring her that no box large enough existed to hold the contents of the messy room, I began to recount all the times my kids have come home from school this fall with some sort of politically charged anecdote.
From ugly exchanges on the fourth-grade foursquare court to tense discussions of racism in politics in eighth-grade civics class, my kids seem to be living in a months-long episode of "Hardball."
Why are our children, who can't even cast a vote on Tuesday, so wound up about this race? It's certainly not the first time kids have taken sides for dubious reasons and declared they will fight to the end for their guy. In 1972, I was in the third grade during the George McGovern-Richard Nixon race. Just prior to our school's mock election, someone started a rumor that McGovern would make us attend school on Saturdays. Needless to say, Nixon won Triangle Elementary in a landslide. Two years later, he resigned and we barely noticed.
All the junior Rush Limbaughs and Keith Olbermanns out there are spouting their jingoisms as if their little lives depended on it. Ironically, to some degree they do. The decisions made or the refusal to make them over the next four years will affect their lives even more than ours. Yet for all their ability to parrot campaign commercials and the emotionally charged opinions of their parents, they have no idea what it all means in real terms.
My son was assigned a paper in which he had to make the case for his candidate without trashing the other one. As it turns out, his past articulation of support has been primarily why he shouldn't support the other guy. His first draft read like a string of bumper stickers: He's the man for the job. He's what this country needs. He'll get us back on the right track. When I asked him for specific examples of how his candidate embodied these thoughts, he couldn't provide any. So we sat down and made a list of the reasons he chose his candidate, and they were good ones. But he had never taken the time to examine this for himself.
I think this is a huge issue for kids living in a society of 24-hour news cycles and an adult population set to vote in record numbers. They seem to grasp the importance of the situation without the meaning. They learn their political lines from their parents or CNN and go out and bludgeon their friends with sound bites.
My daughter recently staged a mock McCain-Obama debate using two Surfer Ken dolls. It went something like this: "Dude, why do you want to raise our taxes and take all our money?" "Well, dude, you're really old and you want to help the rich people." I think a brief smack down ensued, followed by a household straw poll that she updates frequently. (I'm not kidding; there's a chart taped to a cabinet.) There you have it -- "The Situation Room" for nine-year-olds.
Don't get me wrong. I think political awareness is good at any age. But children are not always equipped to accept the transience of the players and their games. They get attached to personalities and ideas and don't move on as easily as the adults who fill their heads with absolutes that dissipate during the four years between election cycles. Children should be told that life is a lot grayer than black and white .
Elections are like major sporting events for kids -- pick your team and talk smack to anyone who supports the other on e. Rays rule! Obama rocks! They don't understand (and it is seldom explained to them) that emotional fervor is passing, that risking friendships and goodwill among neighbors is not worth the momentary thrill of getting in a good jab while fighting the good fight.
We all need to tak e a deep breath and explain to our children that when we wake up Nov. 5, we will all still be Americans, the system worked and we are so lucky to be citizens of the greatest nation on Earth -- regardless of who is headed for Pennsylvania Avenue in January.
Guest columnist Terry Parker lives with her husband and two children in Norfolk. E-mail her at tparker975@aol.com
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
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The Washington Post
November 2, 2008 Sunday
Regional Edition
Disclosure About Obama's Aunt May Have Broken Federal Law
BYLINE: Spencer S. Hsu and Judy Rakowsky; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A07
The Department of Homeland Security is investigating whether its privacy policy was violated after a news organization reported that an aunt of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama is an illegal immigrant from Kenya, officials said yesterday.
The woman, Zeituni Onyango, 56, lives in a public housing complex in Boston and is the half sister of Obama's late father, who spent most of his life in Kenya before dying in a car accident in 1982.
The Associated Press reported late Friday that Onyango was denied asylum by an immigration judge and that she was instructed to leave the United States in 2004. The AP cited two unnamed sources, identifying one as a federal law enforcement official.
Federal privacy law restricts U.S. immigration agencies from disclosing information about citizens and permanent residents, and DHS policy similarly limits disclosures about the status of legal and illegal immigrants. Asylum-seekers are granted greater protection, because of the sensitive nature of their claims and the risks of retaliation.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the matter has been referred to the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility and its parent department's inspector general.
"They are looking into whether there was a violation of policy in publicly disclosing individual case information," ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said. "We can't comment on individual cases."
After Obama's campaign announced yesterday morning that it will refund a small number of contributions made by Onyango, two government officials confirmed that Onyango had sought asylum, citing violence in her native Kenya. One federal law enforcement official confirmed that a federal administrative judge ruled in 2004 she was not legally entitled to be in the United States and that a final order was entered for her deportation.
While such denials can be appealed, cases are generally decided within a year or two, according to federal statistics. Of about 12 million illegal immigrants estimated to be in the United States, about 550,000 are "fugitive aliens" staying in violation of deportation orders.
Reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show Onyango gave Obama's campaign a total of $265, including several contributions of $5 and $25. The latest recorded contribution, of $5, was on Sept. 19. Only U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, known as green cardholders, can legally contribute to federal presidential campaigns.
"Given the information that has been brought to our attention, the contributions are being refunded," said Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman. "Senator Obama has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed."
Mark Salter, a McCain adviser, called the issue "a family matter."
In his 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father," Obama described meeting the woman he calls Auntie Zeituni and other members of his large paternal family after he first traveled to Kenya in 1988 upon learning of his father's death. Obama wrote that Onyango was a tall, spirited woman who called herself "the champion dancer" and worked as a computer programmer in Nairobi.
Obama was raised mostly by his mother and her family in Hawaii after his father returned to Kenya when Obama was 2. Obama was reunited with his father once, for a month, at age 10.
Obama and his future wife, Michelle, met Onyango on a subsequent visit to Kenya in 1992, and she visited the Obama family in Chicago on a tourist visa about nine years ago, his campaign said. Onyango attended Obama's U.S. Senate swearing-in ceremony in 2005, and the senator last heard from her about two years ago, according to the campaign.
A campaign source said Obama provided Onyango no assistance in obtaining a tourist visa or housing, or in her immigration case.
In an interview with the Times of London, which first reported Onyango's presence in Boston and her campaign contributions, Onyango said she had traveled to and from the United States since 1975. Commercial databases indicate she received a Social Security card in 2001, indicating she was legally present and authorized to work at that time.
Onyango was not at her state-subsidized West Broadway residence yesterday in South Boston, and no one answered her telephone.
William McGonigle, deputy director of the Boston Housing Authority, said Onyango applied for public housing in 2002 and was approved in 2003 as an eligible noncitizen. She was paid a small stipend for volunteering as a resident health advocate starting in December 2007, he said.
McGonigle said that housing officials were not notified of her deportation order and that they followed all federal rules and laws in providing her stipend. He said housing officials were not aware that Onyango was related to Obama until the Times of London phoned last week.
Rakowsky reported from Boston. Staff writers Keith B. Richburg in New York and Matthew Mosk, and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Elise Amendola -- Associated Press; An aunt of presidential candidate Barack Obama was ordered to be deported but lives here in South Boston.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
November 2, 2008 Sunday
Suburban Edition
Colorado (9 electoral votes)
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. AA02
Colorado (9 electoral votes)
The Rocky Mountains have become the newest presidential battleground, with Colorado looming as the biggest prize in the region this fall. Colorado hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since 1992, but it increasingly looks like Barack Obama country.
Democrats targeted the state early and held their convention in Denver to signal their determination to continue a political conversion in the state. And Obama has tried to overwhelm John McCain with money and manpower. The senator from Illinois has more than 50 offices around the state to mobilize his voters, compared with McCain's dozen. McCain drew several thousand enthusiastic supporters in Denver a week ago; two days later, Obama drew 100,000. An Obama victory here would close off a critically important avenue that the senator from Arizona needs to reach 270 electoral votes.
Democrats hope to continue their recent success in other races by picking up the seat of retiring Sen. Wayne Allard (R). Rep. Mark Udall (D) is the heavy favorite over former representative Bob Schaffer, who saw the Republican senatorial committee pull down its ads more than a week before the election.
In House races, Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R) is in trouble against Betsy Markey (D), a former aide to Sen. Ken Salazar (D). Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman (R), who served a tour as a Marine officer in Iraq, is expected to easily defeat Democrat Hank Eng in the race to replace Tom Tancredo in the strongly Republican 6th District. Tancredo is retiring after a failed bid for the GOP presidential nomination. Udall's 2nd District seat, which includes Boulder, is likely to be won by Democrat Jared Polis, a former chairman of the Colorado Board of Education. He faces Republican Scott Starin, who works in the aerospace industry.
Florida (27)
The state at the center of the 2000 presidential election is one of a handful of true tossups in the fight between McCain and Obama.
Obama spent millions of dollars on commercials in the late summer and early fall before McCain responded with ads of his own. While polling initially showed Obama's ads having little effect, as the fall has worn on the race for the Sunshine State has tightened considerably, with most surveys showing the two candidates in a statistical dead heat.
The crucial area is the Interstate 4 corridor, which crisscrosses Florida from Flagler County on the east coast to Sarasota County on the west coast. Every recent statewide election has been decided in this area, and all six statewide elected officials hail from one of the 12 counties considered part of the I-4 corridor.
The state is also rife with competitive House races. Two Orlando-area Republicans -- Reps. Tom Feeney and Ric Keller -- appear headed for defeat. Feeney is being challenged by former state representative Suzanne Kosmas, Keller by lawyer Alan Grayson.
In the Miami area, the GOP brothers Diaz-Balart -- Lincoln in the 21st District, Mario in the 25th -- face serious challenges from well-known figures in South Florida's Hispanic community. Republicans are more optimistic about Lincoln's chances against former Hialeah mayor Raul Martinez than they are about Mario's challenge from Joe Garcia, the former Miami-Dade Democratic chairman.
In South Florida's 16th District, Rep. Tim Mahoney (D) -- brought low by his high-profile admission of extramarital affairs -- is a likely loser against lawyer Tom Rooney (R), whose family owns football's Pittsburgh Steelers.
Rep. Verne Buchanan (R), who won by just 369 votes in 2006, seems safe in his 13th District rematch against Christine Jennings (D). In the state's only open-seat contest, state Sen. Bill Posey (R) is the favorite over physician Steve Blythe in the race to succeed retiring Rep. Dave Weldon (R) in the Space Coast 15th District.
Georgia (15)
Georgia has been a solidly Republican state, but Obama invested heavily in voter-registration efforts, hoping a huge turnout among blacks could push him toward victory. When polls showed McCain in good shape earlier this fall, the Obama campaign took down its television ads but kept some staff in the state. With polls now tightening and early-vote numbers looking positive, Obama decided to begin running ads again this weekend. McCain still rates a narrow favorite, but the margin could be smaller than expected.
The surge of black voters and the Obama campaign's aggressive voter registration could help the Democrats defeat Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R), who is in a tossup race with former state representative Jim Martin.
Rep. Jim Marshall (D), who won by only two points in 2006, is in another tough race in central Georgia against Rick Goddard (R), a retired Air Force major general. In a district that Bush carried easily in 2004, Marshall has distanced himself from Obama. Rep. John Barrow (D), who won by 864 votes in 2006, is favored to hold his seat against former congressional aide John Stone (R).
Indiana (11)
Usually a solid state for Republicans, Indiana is so competitive this year that Obama paid a late visit to pump up the black vote in Gary. Since a narrow loss in the primary, he has launched an unprecedented ground campaign, opening 44 offices and launching a major registration effort. The key battleground is around Fort Wayne, and if the early-reporting results show Obama scoring there, watch out.
Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. (R), the former Bush administration budget director, had a rough stretch in the first two years of his term, with controversies over the leasing of the Indiana Toll Road and daylight saving time. But he has emerged with high approval ratings and is cruising to a second term over ex-U.S. representative Jill Long Thompson (D).
Democrats gained three House seats in 2006 and are favored to hold all of them, including the 9th District, where Rep. Baron P. Hill (D) has traded victories with former congressman Mike Sodrel (R) in three straight races. They will square off for the fourth time Tuesday. Rep. Mark Souder (R), who represents Fort Wayne, is favored over youthful lawyer Michael Montagano (D).
Iowa (7)
The place where it all began for Obama is one of the states most likely to switch from Republican to Democratic on Tuesday. Public polls show Obama with a healthy lead, although McCain advisers say the race is much closer than that.
Iowa has produced extremely close elections in the past two presidential campaigns. But in 2006, Democrats made major gains, and Obama spent almost a full year traveling the state on the way to his victory in the January caucuses that launched his candidacy. McCain, in contrast, skipped Iowa in his 2000 campaign and spent little time there during the Republican caucuses.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D) is cruising toward reelection to a fifth term. There are no changes expected in the state's five congressional districts, where Democrats hold a 3 to 2 advantage. Democrats believe a strong turnout for Obama could boost Becky Greenwald, who is challenging Rep. Tom Latham (R) in the 4th District, but the Republican remains the favorite.
Missouri (11)
In the past 104 years, Missouri has voted for the presidential loser only once -- in 1956, when it went for Democratic Sen. Adlai Stevenson, who hailed from the neighboring state of Illinois. That record has rightly earned the Show-Me State its reputation as a presidential bellwether.
Will it hold on to that coveted status after this election? McCain opened up a comfortable lead in the state over the summer, but a concerted television campaign by Obama has helped narrow the gap, and most polls now suggest that the race is a dead heat.
Democrats have made strides in recent years -- highlighted by Sen. Claire McCaskill's win in 2006 -- thanks to a heavy focus on the more rural portions of Missouri between St. Louis in the east and Kansas City in the west.
Using that blueprint, state Attorney General Jay Nixon (D) is a heavy favorite to defeat Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R) in the gubernatorial race caused by the retirement of one-term Gov. Matt Blunt (R).
In the northwestern part of the state, Democrats have high hopes for former Kansas City mayor Kay Barnes in her challenge to 6th District Rep. Sam Graves (R). The incumbent has successfully painted Barnes as a liberal, but she has the edge. In Hulshof's open 9th District, state Rep. Judy Baker (D) is hoping that a huge turnout in Columbia -- home of the University of Missouri -- will boost her against former state representative Blaine Luetkemeyer (R). But the district's Republican roots may be too strong for Baker to overcome.
Montana (3)
Commonly known by natives as the Last, Best Place, Montana is also one of the last states that anyone would have expected to be a battleground.
The last Democrat to carry Montana at the presidential level was Bill Clinton in 1992, although that came with a major assist from independent candidate Ross Perot, who won 26 percent of the state's vote that year. Since then, Montana has moved heavily toward Republicans at the presidential level.
Despite that, Obama has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television ads here, and polling shows that the race is competitive -- although McCain maintains a narrow edge.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the man credited with the Democratic resurgence in Montana, is virtually assured of a second term in his race against Republican Roy Brown. Sen. Max Baucus (D), too, will cruise to reelection and a sixth term.
Nevada (5)
Nevada sided with Bush in the past two elections, but Democrats have done an impressive job over the past year in changing the composition of the electorate. That has given Obama hopes of picking off the state Tuesday, but McCain is fighting hard to keep Nevada red. Heading into the final days, it leans slightly toward Obama.
Four years ago, Republicans and Democrats were at rough parity in voter registration, but in the past year Democratic registration has surged, and the party now enjoys an advantage of just over 100,000. Another positive sign for Obama is in early-vote statistics. In the two big population areas -- Clark County (Las Vegas) and Washoe County (Reno) -- Democratic early votes significantly outnumber Republicans'. And, in contrast to John Kerry four years ago, Obama also has spent time courting rural voters.
In Nevada's 2nd District, Rep. Dean Heller faces stiff competition from state Democratic Chair Jill Derby in a rematch from 2006; the race narrowly leans his way. In the 3rd District, Rep. Jon Porter is in an even tougher race against 2006 gubernatorial nominee Dina Titus.
New Hampshire (4)
This state, which saved McCain in January's GOP primary (as it did in 2000) and caused Obama heartburn by backing Hillary Rodham Clinton, appears poised to reverse signals now. Obama has a lead approaching double digits, which McCain will try to stall with a visit today.
Anti-Bush sentiment, which fueled a Democratic sweep in 2006, is the biggest challenge for Sen. John E. Sununu (R) in his rematch with former governor Jeanne Shaheen (D). She has held leads from four to six points in most polls. In their final debate Sununu tried to focus independent voters on the endorsements he has gained from newspapers that supported Shaheen in their 2002 Senate battle.
Popular Gov. John Lynch (D) is headed for a third-term win over state Sen. Joe Kenney (R), a Marine reservist who took the nomination better-known Republicans had turned down.
Democrats captured both House seats in 2006, and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D) is clinging to the slightest of leads in her rematch with former congressman Jeb Bradley (R).
New Mexico (5)
At the start of the 2008 election season, Republicans controlled two of the state's three House seats and one of its Senate seats, and were still riding high on Bush's narrow victory in the Land of Enchantment four years earlier. But for months now, Republicans have acknowledged that Obama is almost certain to carry New Mexico on Tuesday, and they have ceded the state in order to conserve resources for Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, among others.
The Democratic whitewash will continue in the Senate race, where Rep. Tom Udall (D) is comfortably ahead of Rep. Steve Pearce (R) for the seat of retiring Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R).
The House delegation will see new faces in January as all three members -- Udall, Pearce and Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R) -- left their seats to pursue the Senate seat.
The 1st District, based in Albuquerque and one of the most closely divided in the country, appears to be tilting Democrats' way, with former Albuquerque city councilman Martin Heinrich (D) favored over Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White (R). In the southern 2nd District, former Lea County commissioner Harry Teague (D) is favored over wealthy businessman Ed Tinsley (R) despite the area's conservative bent. Ben Ray Luján (D), son of the longtime New Mexico state House speaker, is a heavy favorite to replace Udall in the Democratic-friendly 3rd District.
North Carolina (15)
The top three races here couldn't be closer. Obama won big in the primary and has mounted a huge TV and ground game ever since, but McCain has fought hard to keep the state's record of being in the GOP column since 1976. Democrats figure that the black vote share would have to climb six or seven percentage points above the normal 18 to 20 percent for Obama to make it.
With Gov. Mike Easley (D) term-limited after eight years, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue (D) was the early favorite, but seven-term Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory (R) has captured the change theme. In the past, Republicans have won the governorship only in years of big presidential victories.
Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) became a target for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which ran largely unanswered TV ads all summer for her opponent, Kay Hagan (D). Dole found herself trailing in the polls and has opened a negative attack on Hagan, even linking her to atheism, but shut out of local newspaper endorsements, she may not have reacted in time.
Rep. Robin Hayes (R), who won by 329 votes last time, is facing the same opponent, populist teacher Larry Kissell (D), who this year has much stronger national support. Hayes added to his problems by telling a McCain rally that "liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God." The incumbent has dipped into his own fortune to try to save the seat.
North Dakota (3)
Despite the state's long history of supporting Republicans for the White House, four late polls showed the McCain-Obama race within the margin of error. In addition to the problems plaguing the GOP nationally, McCain has been hurt here by his vote against the farm bill and his criticism of ethanol subsidies. Obama folded his operation early, when the first post-convention polls showed McCain with a comfortable lead, and that decision may cost him in what has turned into a close race.
Gov. John Hoeven (R), the nation's longest-serving current governor, is headed for a third term over state Sen. Tim Mathern (D).
Ohio (20)
No Republican has won the White House without winning Ohio, and there's no realistic way to chart a course for McCain that doesn't include the Buckeye State. He and Sarah Palin are showering Ohio with attention, but he is in a struggle to keep Ohio in the Republican column. This state is rated a tossup, but polls have shown Obama with a small but consistent lead.
The most famous political figure in Ohio politics this fall is Joe the Plumber, the Toledo-area everyman who has become McCain's proxy in the economic debate. The economy is McCain's biggest burden here. Next to Michigan, Ohio may be the Midwestern state hardest hit by the economic downturn, and its slump long predates the mortgage and financial industry collapse.
Obama's hopes for converting Ohio lie in huge turnouts in the bigger cities and improving over Kerry's performance in small-town and rural southern Ohio. Obama ran poorly in those areas in the primary, and McCain is counting on those voters to pull him through.
Republicans are braced for the loss of House seats here. Rep. Steve Chabot is in a tossup race against state Rep. Steve Driehaus (D) in the 1st District, where a large black turnout for Obama could sink the Republican. Rep. Jean Schmidt (R) also faces stiff competition in her rematch against Democrat Victoria Wulsin, but her strongly Republican district may save her.
Retirements have created two vulnerable Republican seats. In the 15th District, Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy, who nearly defeated Rep. Deborah Pryce in 2006, is now in a tossup race against state Sen. Steve Stivers (R). In the 16th District, where Ralph Regula (R) is retiring, state Sen. Kirk Schuring faces real competition from state Sen. John Boccieri. Democrats say a big Obama victory also could pull in the district of retiring Rep. David L. Hobson (R), where Republican Steve Austria faces Sharen Neuhardt (D).
Pennsylvania (21)
Almost no state has seen more of McCain and Palin in the closing days than Pennsylvania, but Obama appears to be holding his hard-earned advantage. After losing the primary here to Hillary Clinton, he solidified his position by choosing Scranton native Joseph R. Biden Jr. as his running mate and rallied a blue-collar Democratic base. McCain and Palin have fought hard for those voters and lead among them in some polls. But Palin's weakness among suburban independents and the prospect of a massive black vote in Philadelphia tilt the race toward Obama.
Democrats, who gained four House seats in 2006, are favored for all of them, although Rep. Chris Carney (D) is getting a challenge from entrepreneur Chris Hackett (R). A more serious threat faces veteran Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D), weakened by publicity over earmarks that benefited a family-owned business. He faces Lou Barletta, the mayor of Hazleton, who won national attention for an ordinance banning employment of illegal immigrants. Kanjorski was worried enough to enlist the help of former president Bill Clinton.
Longtime Rep. John P. Murtha (D) has found himself in trouble over remarks suggesting that his district is "racist" or "redneck." That brought fresh support from Washington for his opponent, William Russell (R), a retired Army lieutenant colonel. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats have rushed funds to Murtha, and he is expected to survive. Democrats have targeted seven-term Rep. Phil English (R) and are running a new candidate, landscape architect Kathy Dahlkemper, known for her work as director of the Lake Erie Arboretum.
The retirement of Rep. John E. Peterson (R) opens the way for former Centre County GOP chairman Glenn Thompson to come to Congress.
Virginia (13)
No state has seen its politics change more dramatically over the past four years than Virginia.
In 2004, Bush won it rather easily -- 54 percent to 45 percent -- over Kerry, the 10th straight time the Republican presidential candidate had carried the commonwealth.
The intervening years, however, have brought almost no good news for the GOP. Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine claimed the state's highest office in 2005, and the following year Sen. George Allen (R) fell in a stunning upset to James Webb (D).
Democrats seem likely to keep up their momentum Tuesday. Polls conducted in recent weeks have shown Obama leading McCain by between four and nine points.
Former Democratic governor Mark Warner is cruising to a victory over another former governor -- Republican Jim Gilmore -- in the race to replace retiring Sen. John W. Warner (R).
The House is filled with possibilities for Democrats as well. Northern Virginia's 11th District, held by retiring Rep. Tom Davis (R) since 1994, is almost certain to be represented by Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerry Connolly (D) in 2009. He faces newcomer Keith Fimian. Republicans are also increasingly pessimistic about Rep. Thelma Drake's chances in the 2nd District, which includes large swaths of Norfolk and Virginia Beach and has a 21 percent African American population. She is being challenged by Glenn Nye (D), who has been promised a seat on the locally vital Armed Services Committee. The 5th District, a conservative redoubt held by party-switching Republican Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., is also in jeopardy as Goode finds himself in a much more competitive race against Democrat Tom Perriello than expected. Tenth District Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R) is facing a rematch with Democrat Judith Feder but should win.
West Virginia (5)
After the shellacking Obama took in West Virginia during the primaries, there was little expectation that the state would become competitive in the general election. McCain is still favored, but Obama has held it closer than his performance in the spring would have foreshadowed.
The Mountain State was solid Democratic territory for years, but in 2000, it shifted to the Republicans in the presidential race, and Bush expanded his margin here in 2004. Obama got only 27 percent in the primary against Hillary Clinton but has converted some of those voters. Still, if Obama picked off the state, he would be on his way to an overwhelming electoral college margin.
In the Senate race, John D. Rockefeller IV (D) is breezing toward reelection to a fifth term, although he remains the junior senator to the venerable Robert C. Byrd (D). Gov. Joe Manchin III (D) also is cruising toward a second term.
The only House member with a race is Republican Shelley Moore Capito, although she is favored to hold her seat over Anne Barth (D), a former aide to Byrd.
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post; Support is on display at a John McCain rally in New Mexico. The state is one of several that have been solidly Republican in past years but where McCain is now running closely against Democrat Barack Obama.
IMAGE
IMAGE; By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post; A crowd listens to Barack Obama at a town hall meeting in Ohio, one of several states rated as tossups.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
November 2, 2008 Sunday
Met 2 Edition
Discord on Economies In a World Of Trouble;
Conflicts Emerge as Nations Seek Solutions
BYLINE: Steven Mufson, Mary Jordan and Edward Cody; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Presidents and prime ministers from major countries around the world will gather in Washington in two weeks to begin heated negotiations over the shape of global financial regulation as they scramble to avoid a deep worldwide recession and restore confidence in markets.
Key European allies are pushing for broad new roles for international organizations, empowering them to monitor everything from the global derivatives trade to the way major banks are regulated across borders. But the Bush administration has signaled reluctance to go that far. In the past, it has resisted similar proposals as potentially co-opting the independence of the U.S. financial system or compromising free markets.
Some economists and policymakers say the summit could launch important reforms. But others predict it could turn into an economic tower of Babel, with weak political leaders promoting solutions fundamentally at odds with one another. And if leaders cannot bridge their differences, they could risk another bout of financial disarray.
There are also differences of opinion on the issue of timing. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who pressed for the 20-nation summit, says it must produce concrete and immediate results. But the host, President Bush, is a lame duck who says the meeting will be "the first in a series" and should focus on principles even though "the specific solutions pursued by every country may not be the same." Emerging proposals to sharpen existing regulatory tools appear to conflict with plans to create entirely new ones.
What is clear is that expectations for the summit among many observers are high.
"At the moment, I don't think it would be acceptable for the major leaders to come back from this conference and to go to their respective parliaments or whatever and say, 'Yes, we rearranged the deck chairs a little bit.' Because this is genuinely a Titanic crash," said Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics and former head of Britain's financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority.
The summit does have a precedent, one reaching back more than six decades. At the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, world leaders gathered to design the current international financial architecture, laying the groundwork for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The Nov. 15 summit has been popularly referred to as Bretton Woods II.
But this time is different. Two years of preparation went into the 1944 summit. And whereas the United States and Britain largely shaped the postwar financial system, financial regulation and coordination will now require the participation of a broader and more unwieldy group, including emerging economies, many of them loaded with foreign exchange reserves, foreign debts and influence over global financial markets.
Those emerging economies, far from being "decoupled" from traditional industrial powers as many analysts believed just a few months ago, have found that they and more developed nations need one another.
One unknown factor, for now at least, is the U.S. president-elect. Both Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have said little about their views on the summit. The White House has said it does not expect the winner of Tuesday's election to attend, but to have input to some extent.
Bush, meanwhile, has been reserved. "We need to proceed with caution and care but also with all due speed," White House press secretary Dana Perino said recently. "The president is concerned about moving too far too fast and wanting to avoid unintended consequences."
Locking In Allies
World leaders are already maneuvering for position. Sarkozy, in particular, has methodically sought allies.
He won a key, although carefully worded, endorsement for action from China on Oct. 25 in Beijing, where a Europe-Asia economic cooperation summit called for more regulation of global financial markets.
"Each of us perfectly understood that it was not possible to meet [Nov. 15] just to talk," Sarkozy told reporters at a closing news conference.
"This is about no less and no more than the creation of a new financial constitution," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
Sarkozy has also called a Nov. 7 summit of the European Union's 27 heads of state and government in hopes of winning a Europe-wide mandate to demand swift action in Washington. Recognizing Britain's special contacts with the United States, Sarkozy invited Prime Minister Gordon Brown to a strategy session Tuesday at a presidential retreat in Versailles.
Still, despite all the posturing, there are different views on what concrete action would mean.
Sarkozy and Brown have voiced support for a new international regulatory body to supervise large transnational banks. Brown has called for strengthening the Financial Stability Forum, created after the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. The group of central bankers, finance ministry officials and international financial institution representatives produces important recommendations, Brown said in a speech this week, but, he added, "It never had enough teeth."
Merkel, who has been more conservative in dealing with the crisis than the hard-charging Sarkozy, favors a stronger International Monetary Fund, giving it a supervisory role in international finance and making it a "guard" of financial stability. Brown, too, has proposed making the IMF "an early-warning system" for financial problems, singling out low bank capital ratios or wildly mispriced securities.
IMF officials have embraced the idea that the fund could take on a larger role, perhaps as part of a secretariat involving other multilateral institutions.
Sarkozy has also sought support for proposals to curtail tax havens with new international investigative powers; require increased transparency on high-risk hedge fund investments; and regulate financial traders' compensation packages in a way that would reduce the incentive to make risky investments. But a French analyst said Sarkozy may scale back some of those ambitions given U.S. opposition. "He may have overreached a bit," said the analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity so that he could speak candidly.
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, in power just five weeks, spelled out in a nationally televised speech Thursday night what he wants from the summit: international regulation of financial institutions and of credit rating agencies as well as standardized accounting for international business and markets.
"The current system under which the authorities in each individual country supervise their respective financial institutions is insufficient," Aso said.
He blamed "grave shortcomings" in the credit ratings of subprime mortgage securities and questioned whether the U.S. accounting requirement that firms value securities at market value made sense "given the tremendous volatility in the financial markets that we are currently seeing." Many financial institutions have argued that market panic drives down the value of those securities too far; other experts say that alternatives give financial institutions too much leeway to come up with their own, often inflated, valuations.
China may prove more cautious than any other nation. Wu Xiaoqiu, director of the Institute of Finance and Securities, said he thinks Chinese officials, while joining their European counterparts in calling for an overhaul of current regulatory systems, would stop short of supporting a proposal for a worldwide organization with significant power.
"It is important to have an agency which can coordinate the global market and policies of different countries," Wu said. "But China doesn't like the idea of having a global SEC since no organization should affect the sovereignty of countries."
Prospects for Politicians
For some leaders, the financial crisis offers a political opportunity at a time when electorates are deeply concerned about the future. Brown, Merkel and Sarkozy are all facing low approval ratings.
"I think all of the governments are uncomfortably aware that they have got very, very nervous electorates. Point one is just to show that somehow there is an agenda which can allow people to feel that something's under control," said Davies, the director of the London School of Economics. "People like Sarkozy, in particularly, and Brown know that their future depends on it appearing that they are responding adequately to this crisis."
There are dangers, though. The pressure to be seen as taking vigorous action could lead to overregulation, say many business leaders, especially in London, where the financial services sector plays a key role in the economy.
Willem Buiter, a professor at the London School of Economics and a former Bank of England policymaker, said he feared "we will . . . end up regulating so tightly that a lot of financial institutions will be untenable and unprofitable and we will spend the next decade slowly chipping away at over-regulation."
Disunity is another risk. If world leaders fail to coordinate, the consequences could be severe. Their staggered responses to the financial crisis in September contributed to bank runs and currency fluctuations, as money fled to whatever country was promising the most generous guarantees.
"If we forbid alcohol in two pubs only, everyone would just go to the other pubs," said Dimitrios Tsomocos, professor of financial economics at Oxford University and a consultant to the Bank of England, who added that one nation's regulatory scheme must not be more attractive to business than another's.
"Now, with the crisis I think the chances have improved for coming to an international consensus," said Michael Meister, a parliamentarian with Merkel's Christian Democrats. "I hope the crisis will serve as a chance for real reform. . . . The more time elapses, the more difficult it will be to change regulations because once the urgency passes, there will be reluctance for action."
Robert Hormats, a vice chairman at Goldman Sachs and former National Security Council staffer, said that the November summit would be valuable if it became the first in a series of G-20 meetings, widening economic coordination.
"We're at a point of time where the role of emerging economies has become very apparent and where the G-7 does not have the capacity in the eyes of many people in the world to solve this problem alone," Hormats said.
"We've learned from this crisis that you can't conceivably in the future try to pretend that the global financial system can be run by the occasional phone call between the Fed, the Bank of England, the SEC and the FSA," Davies agreed. "That's not going to work anymore."
Brown, in a speech to business leaders in London this week, said, "We have got to . . . involve China, India and all the emerging market economies because the world economy is changing before our eyes, and the system that is just built on Europe and America will not survive the test of time."
Jordan reported from London, Cody from Paris. Correspondents Blaine Harden in Tokyo and Ariana Eunjung Cha in Shanghai, as well as special correspondents Karla Adam in London, Akiko Yamamoto in Tokyo, Shannon Smiley in Berlin and Stella Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By David Gray -- Reuters; France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, turns to German chancellor Angela Merkel, right, last month in Beijing, where Asian and European leaders traded views on the global downturn, climate change and international security.
IMAGE; Pool Photo By Patrick Kovarik Via Reuters; Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a strategy session at a presidential retreat in Versailles.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
November 2, 2008 Sunday
Regional Edition
Don't Blame the Bradley Effect
SECTION: OUTLOOK; Pg. B01
They call it "the Bradley effect."
Pundits and politicians speak of it in ominous tones. It surfaced in New Hampshire in January, when Barack Obama's eight-point lead on the eve of that state's primary dissolved into a shocking come-from-behind victory for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Could it have been the Bradley effect? Chris Matthews of "Hardball" and a host of other talking heads thought so.
As Obama continues to hold a lead in the presidential polls against John McCain, the specter of the Bradley effect still haunts the campaign. It's a reference to the 1982 California governor's race, which Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, an African American, lost to state Attorney General George Deukmejian even though a popular election-eve poll showed Bradley ahead by a solid seven points. If Obama should lose on Nov. 4, there are those who'll maintain it was the Bradley effect at work. Even in faraway Kenya, the Los Angeles Times found a Nairobi choreographer to quote: "There's this thing called 'the Bradley effect' that we are all very afraid of."
Enough. This urban legend, which holds that white voters may be telling pollsters they're voting for Obama while they're secretly harboring racial reservations about him, deserves to be banished from our political conversation. As a senior strategist and day-to-day tactician in Deukmejian's 1982 campaign, I'm happy to send it packing once and for all.
There were several reasons why Bradley lost the governor's race in 1982 -- and none of them had to do with race. In the last two weeks of that campaign, Bradley was cruising through California on a languid victory tour. Conventional wisdom and early polling had made him smug and complacent. Nine days before the voting, a United Press International story observed: "Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley hasn't even been elected governor yet, but Democrats already are talking him up as a potential candidate for vice president in 1984." You could hardly blame them. Deukmejian's campaign manager had resigned three weeks before Election Day, and the political obituaries for the Republican candidate had become routine.
With our backs to the wall, the "Duke's" campaign regrouped. We got a large infusion of late cash from loyal supporters and shed our defensive posture in favor of hard-hitting messages homing in on Bradley's two principal vulnerabilities: non-Angeleno antipathy toward Los Angeles and the mayor's "soft-on-crime" liberalism.
With a little more than a week left, I drafted copy for two new television commercials. The first built on Bradley's opposition to the death penalty and California's Victims' Bill of Rights, both of which had been overwhelmingly approved by state voters. Four former chiefs of Bradley's own police department had endorsed Deukmejian, the author of California's death-penalty statute and other tough-on-crime laws.
A second commercial sharply exploited the wariness that other major California cities felt toward Los Angeles, something that surveys by our pollster, Lance Tarrance, showed to be a sure vote-getter in San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area and growing suburbs across the state. Hence the tag line: "We deserve a governor for all of California's cities, not just one." It's noteworthy that no Los Angeles mayor has been elected governor in modern California history.
But rural California wasn't in line merely to reject Los Angeles. There were two other central concerns. First, guns. Gun control advocates had put an initiative to freeze handgun sales -- Proposition 15 -- on the ballot. The NRA and the firearms industry raised millions of dollars to run the "No on 15" campaign and, through California gun stores, registered 300,000 new voters, few of whom were likely to vote for gun-control advocate Bradley.
Add that to Bradley's unpopularity among Central Valley farmers -- he'd supported the United Farm Workers' grape boycott and couldn't escape being identified with vastly unpopular Gov. Jerry Brown -- and it's easy to see why rural California flocked to the polls to voice its opposition to his candidacy.
Finally, exit polls showing Bradley winning were skewed by the unprecedented wave of absentee voters. In early September, the state GOP apparatus had set in motion a campaign to promote absentee-ballot voting -- something quite common today but more unusual a quarter-century ago. The party's push contributed to more than a half-million absentee voters, 50 percent more than in the previous gubernatorial election. As so many other observers, Democrats as well as Republicans, have noted, Bradley may well have won with actual precinct voters. But he was swamped by overwhelmingly Republican absentee ballots counted late into the night and the early morning hours.
Analysts shouldn't overlook an element of flawed polling that contributed to the Election Day surprise. Tarrance continued his tracking polls for the Deukmejian campaign right up through the eve of Election Day. His final tracking poll was taken on Sunday and Monday nights and showed Deukmejian within one point of Bradley, confirming the steady gains we'd been making since taking the offensive in the last two weeks. Mervin Field, whose firm was then the state's gold standard of polling, took his final poll over the weekend, including both Friday and Saturday, the two days when it's most difficult to reach the most valid samples of voters. Field not only may have had sampling errors, but his timing was also massively flawed and failed to capture Deukmejian's surging momentum.
Lost in all the shallow analysis of that gubernatorial campaign is what might really be called "the Deukmejian effect." Less than three weeks before election day, Field had released a poll analysis showing that about 5 percent of voters were disinclined to vote for an African American candidate. But the poll also found something else: "On the other hand 12 percent of the voters say they are disinclined to vote for a candidate of Armenian descent (which describes Deukmejian). In the face of these findings, it would appear that Deukmejian's Armenian background could potentially act as a greater drag to his chances of becoming governor than being Black works against Bradley."
Indeed, when poll callers recorded verbatim responses to the question "What is the main reason you have for voting for/against George Deukmejian?", an alarming number included angry attacks on the candidate's Armenian ancestry. Moreover, his was not exactly the most "average"-sounding of names. Deukmejian's six immediate predecessors had been named Brown, Reagan, Brown, Knight, Warren and Olson. Race aside, "Bradley" was a familiar name that fit the mold.
In the end, voters managed to sort everything out -- and Deukmejian's ancestry and Bradley's race may have canceled each other out. Polling errors, absentee votes, gun rights activists, anti-L.A. sentiment and Tom Bradley's liberal positions all added to his narrow defeat -- by just a little more than 1 percent of the vote -- by a better-run campaign that created driving momentum in its final days. Any notion of race as an issue was put to bed when Bradley sought a rematch in 1986, and Deukmejian trounced him by 23 percent -- the biggest gubernatorial landside in California in the last half of the 20th century.
As Tarrance recently wrote, the "Bradley effect" is a "theory in search of data." If we want honest debate about the role of race in elections, it's time to put a stake through its heart.
Ken Khachigian, a California lawyer, was a senior aide to President Ronald Reagan.
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
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The Washington Post
November 2, 2008 Sunday
Regional Edition
Opposite Sides of the Fence but Equal Lawn Time
BYLINE: Michael Laris; Washington Post Staff Writer
The two plastic yard signs planted in the mulch in Fairfax County confound passersby. Same with two others stuck in a lawn four blocks away. What kind of people -- at the end of a divisive campaign, in a battleground state -- would have signs for both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama in front of their homes?
Alex Fetgatter stepped inside out of the drizzle one recent night, dropped his gray fleece on Ezzie, the family poodle, and, along with his dad, Jim, started to explain.
They have been living together south of Alexandria since Alex graduated from the University of Virginia this summer, and the old patterns are still in play: Father takes on the liberal media at the breakfast table, seeing bias in the coverage. Photos capturing unflattering Republican facial expressions are always a good trigger. Holding forth may then ensue.
"It's amazing what you can do with a picture," Jim, 63, says.
"I just tease him about how obsessed he is with all this," says Alex, 22.
"I'm really not."
"Umm, I don't know about that."
They do a lot of jabbing and joking, and that's the way they approach their private conversation about the nation's politics.
There are no bespectacled moderators or 90-second time limits in the places where most Americans argue about politics, just the love, history and imperfect patter of communication and miscommunication that shape family life. Campaign signs can be quick distillations of those debates. More rarely, the flimsy plastic exclamations advertise unresolved clashes.
After Jim's McCain sign went up, Alex parked his Jeep Cherokee -- well, the Jeep Cherokee he was borrowing from his dad -- in front to block the view. Jim, who had a Bush sign four years ago, said he'd prefer if his son got his own.
"I woke up at 6:30, and it was there -- a magic mushroom," Jim said.
And that was that. Though it wasn't, really.
Alex's older brother, Ryan, 24, who lives in Rosslyn and works in real estate development, occupies the family's right flank. Uprooting his brother's sign and leaving it to be discovered behind a bush became a favorite provocation.
While Alex and his father have been keeping the political talk tamped down while living under the same roof, things devolve when Ryan joins them for dinner.
"Then it's . . ." Jim begins.
"Oh, God," adds Alex.
"Wide open," Jim says.
"Then it explodes," Alex says. "I really hate talking about politics, actually. You're not going to change anyone's opinion, and to be honest, I'm not that well-informed, so . . . "
"Obviously," his dad can't help but interject.
Alex voted for President Bush shortly after leaving home for Charlottesville, where he studied history. He was "kind of Republican by association," he said. He now works at a private contractor for the Department of Agriculture and believes that a more activist government, led by Obama, will better protect the environment. He welcomes "more direct, intense government involvement in things, 'cause I feel like that's really the only way to get people to change."
It would also be a striking feat for the United States to have a black president, Alex adds. And he thinks Obama would be better at defending the civil rights of Alex's gay friends.
That's "not even worth talking about right now, with everything else going on," says Jim, who runs an association for foreign real estate investors. His focus is economics, terrorism and stopping a Democratic sweep. On the Iraq war, "McCain has been right all along, and Obama has been wrong along," he adds.
Despite the sparring, they agree on some big things. They think the campaign has gone too long, with too much minutiae and gossip. ("I find it hard to even watch Fox News anymore," Jim says.)
Most important, they still share the same family values.
"Being honest," Alex says. "Being a good friend."
"Work ethic," his father adds. And the value of education.
Alex offers: "The importance of family."
Less than a half-mile away, teacher Barbara Leonard saw the new blue accompaniment to her McCain/Palin lawn sign as she headed out for church.
It was two Sundays ago, and her son Alden, who works as a paralegal for an immigration law firm in the District, had come home after 2 a.m. from a party in Dupont Circle and posted his pro-Obama counterpoint.
The precipitating event was the appearance of the Alaska governor's name on his mom's two most recent signs. Her solo McCain sign had been stolen, and she had replaced it with ones that included the Arizona senator's running mate.
But Alden's sign was quickly overshadowed. On the drive to church with her husband Chip, Barbara heard that former secretary of state Colin Powell was endorsing Obama. "I was just furious," she says. "I talked about it nonstop for the next two days."
Add the torrent of Obama advertisements flowing over family dinners in front of the nightly news, like the one about McCain voting with Bush 90 percent of the time or one on health care she thinks is unfair, and Barbara was feeling besieged.
"They'll jump in and say, 'The McCain camp is doing the exact same thing with Obama's plan. You really don't have a right to complain,' " says Barbara, 58. "I'm the odd man out anyway because I'm the only woman in this household of men. I guess I get a little tired of that sometimes."
Barbara's parents were so conservative that talking politics could easily be seen as talking back, which could get her banished to her room. "If that was the case today, I'd never leave my room," says Alden, 23.
Barbara, an independent, twice voted for Bush but had been inspired by her husband to campaign for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary. Chip Leonard, 59, a military research analyst, had volunteered for Clinton across the country, sometimes paying his own expenses. He loved her passion and ability to see the big picture, and his family fed off his enthusiasm. Alden organized a campus group for the New York senator at the College of William and Mary. Barbara liked how Clinton laid out detailed plans, something she doesn't find in Obama.
"It was fun in the beginning, because we were all on the same page," she says. "We'll talk about it when we're in the nursing home. 'Remember that year?' "
She had hoped she could pull some family members with her to McCain, but she learned this week that her two other sons, one in Charlottesville and another in Colorado, also a key swing state, have decided to go for Obama.
Chip is still ambivalent. He said earlier that he was considering writing in Clinton's name, but he's still weighing what's important to him.
Alden had been down on Obama, too. "He was so angry with Obama months ago for stealing the nomination from Hillary. He had said things like, 'I would never vote for him.' He's really come around. It's like talking to a different person. But Obama's very persuasive," Barbara says.
On Monday night, Alden sent his mom an e-mail full of links. She had said McCain would be better than his rival on health care and would restore America's status abroad. Wrong candidate, he argued.
"It just seems more and more he's on me now about the way I should vote," Barbara says.
But he's too late. She voted absentee last week, something she's not sure her son heard. "He doesn't listen to everything I say."
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Dominic Bracco Ii -- The Washington Post; Chip Leonard, left, is still undecided, his wife Barbara favors Sen. John McCain and son Alden is backing Sen. Barack Obama.
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November 2, 2008 Sunday
Correction Appended
Regional Edition
SECTION: OUTLOOK; Pg. B01
As the presidential campaign draws to a close, it's commonplace to hear 2008 heralded as an excellent year for women. But has it been?
First Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ran the most serious presidential campaign of any woman in U.S. history. Then Gov. Sarah Palin, the first woman on a Republican ticket, sparked an initial rush of excitement. Never before have women played such a prominent role in national politics, the reasoning goes, and that has laid the groundwork for even greater advancement the next time a woman runs.
But both women's campaigns devolved into such strife, their candidacies provoking such frenzied passions and mocking caricatures along the way, that it's only fair to ask whether the first woman's path to the White House was eased this year -- or whether Clinton and Palin simply unearthed the land mines without defusing any of them. If Democrat Barack Obama wins on Tuesday, he will have broken a huge barrier. But another one still awaits.
On Tuesday, Palin will emerge, win or lose, as the figure most transformed by her brief time in the public eye. After bursting onto the national scene as a moose-hunting mother of five who could rescue John McCain's campaign, the Alaska governor wound up sinking in the polls and getting entangled in a classic "girl story" about her now famous Republican National Committee-financed shopping spree. Her campaign handlers promptly threw her overboard and anonymously declared her a "whack job" and a "diva" -- hardly a moment of profound advancement. In the end, Palin seems to represent less "an explosion of a brand-new style of muscular American feminism" (in the words of the contrarian feminist Camille Paglia) than the stereotypical former-beauty-queen-made-good who seeks affirmation about her abilities while people just titter about her clothes.
Clinton moved along a different trajectory, from the lofty status of former first lady and commanding front-runner to the scrappy underdog in the Democratic primaries, fighting her way to the end of the contests and winning a sweeping 18 million votes in the process. But the New York senator's uncharacteristically tearful moment on the eve of the New Hampshire primary will forever be linked to her victory there, deservedly or not. And after her campaign ended, some of her supporters threatened to revolt if Obama picked a woman other than Clinton as his running mate. "That's feminism?" one senior Obama adviser asked me pointedly at the time.
More than just groundbreaking candidates, Clinton and Palin became cultural flashpoints. That Clinton would be ridiculed and mimicked and scrutinized came as no surprise to her team -- many of them had seen her go through a similar wringer in the White House and upon her arrival in the Senate -- but some of her advisers chalked the rough treatment up as much to her being a Clinton as to her being a woman. As the 2008 primary campaign went on, however, they increasingly spoke of a genuine double standard rooted in gender; by the end, they openly complained of sexist treatment in the media, which goes some way toward explaining why Clinton declined to criticize Palin once McCain chose the Alaska governor as his running mate.
Palin lost her luster soon after the Republican convention, stumbling on basic substance in interviews, hiding from most of the media and making claims about her record (such as having opposed the so-called bridge to nowhere) that were debunked. But rather than move to confront her weaknesses, her campaign swiftly seized on sexism as a reason Palin was being grilled in the first place. Most notably, the Republican campaign arranged a conference call to denounce Obama for using the phrase "lipstick on a pig" because just days earlier, Palin herself had made a reference to lipstick ("Disgusting comments, comparing our vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, to a pig," said former Massachusetts governor Jane Swift, a McCain surrogate). Professionals will argue about the political wisdom of that tactic -- it did, after all, distract attention from more serious issues that were failing to boost McCain's standing -- but few would cite it as a trailblazing moment in the history of gender politics.
More recently, another Palin subplot, in addition to the $150,000 boutique wardrobe, had emerged -- her attractiveness, and whether McCain had picked her on that basis. A recent New Yorker article by Jane Mayer noted the swoon among several neoconservatives when they met Palin in Alaska in 2007. ("Exceptionally pretty," said Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard.) In a focus group conducted by the Democratic pollster Peter Hart last Sunday in Ohio, undecided voters were asked which of the four candidates they would most like to sit next to on an airplane. One initially picked Palin, saying, "Geez, I'm a 29-year-old male." (He then changed his answer, saying he'd rather sit with Obama.) Obama views Palin as such a liability that he ran an ad last week featuring her winking. And Palin allies are blaming her McCain handlers for her fall, starting with top communications adviser Nicolle Wallace, who helped arrange the CBS interview with Katie Couric that began Palin's downward slide. The complaints have ballooned into an ugly cat fight. Progress? Really?
Prominent women in politics have been largely focused on the good news -- that Clinton and Palin were there at all. And regardless of which ticket wins on Tuesday, a woman will have a rightful claim to being head of the opposition party. Meanwhile, many Democrats, still scared of picking the scabs from the primary wounds, have embraced Obama's ascent as a positive harbinger of its own.
"Every time we break down one barrier, the other quickly comes down as well," said Donna Brazile, the onetime campaign manager for Al Gore. "Throughout the year, most observers have tried to put race versus gender -- like, what is the greatest disadvantage? As if some of us don't represent both."
Brazile urged people to look beyond the presidential tickets for signs of advancement. "It took us 88 years to get here," she noted. "We have a speaker of the House, a secretary of state, a phenomenal woman who ran for the Democratic ticket and a woman competing to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. It has elevated the process."
Many women in the feminist movement's dominant, largely Democratic wing seem to feel that Clinton's campaign, however flawed, was a step forward -- while Palin's was a step back. "If Hillary cracked the glass ceiling, I think Sarah Palin slipped on some of the pieces of glass," said Ellen Malcolm, the founder of EMILY's List, which supports female candidates who favor abortion rights.
Except, of course, that Clinton didn't actually crack that glass ceiling. Rather, she dented it (18 million times, as she famously pointed out in her final speech in June). And along the way, her candidacy fractured the traditional women's movement: The abortion-rights group NARAL endorsed Obama (deeply angering the Clinton campaign and wounding the candidate personally), while EMILY's List and other groups stood by her, even after it appeared that she wouldn't have enough delegates to win the nomination.
That has left today's feminist movement struggling to define its mission or wondering whether it even has one. Is the goal to promote and elect women everywhere, or is it to support the candidate viewed as the best for the job, whether male or female? Wouldn't the latter be the more progressive course? Is the common purpose to back candidates who back abortion rights and liberal policies? The questions became unexpectedly urgent when McCain picked Palin in August, but they were already bubbling up by the early spring.
Then, in a strikingly similar fashion, conservative women broke into two angry camps as they struggled with whether they were obliged to stand by Palin. McCain's high command had hoped that Palin would peel away resentful Clinton supporters; in fact, she has driven away some GOP stalwarts. The conservative writer Kathleen Parker led the Republican defections, followed by former Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, who disgustedly waved Palin off in one of her Wall Street Journal columns as an unqualified empty vessel who "doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts." The exodus was rooted in disdain for Palin's intellect, but in a way, the Republican departures have been even more disloyal than the feminists who chose Obama over Clinton: Parker, Noonan and others were not abandoning Palin for another partisan of stature, as the Democrats had in their primaries. They were just abandoning her.
Along the way, there have been rogues with their own takes on gender politics. Ann Coulter, a conservative provocateur who openly loathes McCain, declared herself a Clinton supporter. Paglia praised Palin's "frontier grit and audacity" (even though she has said she still intends to vote for Obama), and Ellen Lafferty, a former editor of Ms. magazine and a Clinton supporter, showed up onstage recently at a Palin rally.
But the massive wave of Clinton supporters that Republicans predicted would sweep toward McCain has never materialized, at least not according to the late-October polls. Palin's selection has turned out to be the one example in recent history of a vice presidential pick having a measurable effect on the direction of the race -- a negative one.
In the months and years before she announced her candidacy, Clinton was often asked whether the country was ready to elect a woman president of the United States. "Well, we won't know until we try," she always said.
Having tried, heading into 2009, the question is still out there.
kornbluta@washpost.com
Anne E. Kornblut covers politics for The Washington Post.
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
CORRECTION-DATE: November 4, 2008
CORRECTION: A Nov. 2 Outlook article misidentified a former editor of Ms. magazine Sarah Palin. who appeared onstage at a recent rally for Republican vice presidential nomineeHer name is Elaine Lafferty, not Ellen Lafferty
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November 2, 2008 Sunday
Suburban Edition
Arizona (10 electoral votes)
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. AA03
Arizona (10 electoral votes)
John McCain remains the favorite in his home state, but the contest has tightened. Several polls in the past week have pegged his lead at five points or less, and Barack Obama's campaign has begun to advertise in the state.
In the sprawling 1st District, Rep. Rick Renzi (R) is retiring as he awaits trial on federal corruption charges. Former state representative Ann Kirkpatrick (D) is considered the favorite to replace him over conservative activist Sydney Hay (R).
In the Phoenix-based 3rd District, Rep. John Shadegg (R) is facing a tougher-than-expected challenge from lawyer Bob Lord (D), though polls have shown Shadegg retaining a solid lead. Two Democratic freshmen, Harry E. Mitchell in the 5th District and Gabrielle Giffords in the 8th District, are now favored to retain their seats.
Oklahoma (7)
Polls show McCain leading by an average of roughly 30 points in the state, which President Bush won by more than 31 points in both 2004 and 2000.
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R) is a strong favorite to win reelection against state Sen. Andrew Rice (D), boasting a double-digit lead in every publicly released survey. None of the state's five House incumbents faces a serious challenge.
Texas (34)
McCain will win Texas; the question is whether Republican Sen. John Cornyn's race against state Rep. Rick Noriega (D) will even be close. Cornyn is favored, but his victory does not appear assured.
Two House races bear watching. The suburban-Houston-based 22nd District looks to be one of the GOP's few genuine pickup opportunities in the nation. Rep. Nick Lampson (D) is trying to hold onto the Republican-leaning district formerly held by onetime House majority leader Tom DeLay (R), and the Democrat faces a well-funded challenge from ex-Senate aide Pete Olson (R).
Also in Houston, Rep. John Culberson (R) is favored to win reelection in the 7th District against energy executive Michael Skelly (D), though the last public survey pegged the incumbent's lead at seven points.
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; By Toni L. Sandys -- The Washington Post; Delegates from Texas, a heavily Republican state, attend the GOP's national convention in St. Paul in September.
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November 2, 2008 Sunday
Regional Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. B07
No presidential election is about one thing only. It takes many strands fused together to account for victory or defeat. But when the last ballots are counted, that will not stop a judgmental world from using one criterion above all to analyze the outcome: Did the United States elect a black president or not?
This will be true although -- to an astonishing and admirable degree -- Americans have relegated the politics of race to the back burner in the long presidential campaign now in its final hours.
Barack Obama has succeeded brilliantly in casting his candidacy -- indeed, his whole life -- as post-racial. Even before the votes have been cast, he has written a glorious coda for the civil rights struggle that provided this nation with many of the finest, and also most horrible, moments of its past 150 years. If the results confirm that race was not a decisive factor in the balloting, generations of campaigners for racial justice and equality will have seen their work vindicated.
But on travels abroad this election year, I have found other nations reducing the complex arguments here about health care, national security and tax policy to a one-dimensional discussion of whether American race relations have really changed enough for Obama to win. I have seen this especially in countries that have their own concerns about race and politics and often project those concerns onto us.
This was underlined to me in France recently by this question from a fellow journalist: "Why do Americans insist on describing Barack Obama as 'black'?"
Wait a minute, I responded. The U.S. electorate and the media have, with some deplorable exceptions, worked hard not to treat Obama as a black candidate -- and to focus scorn on those who do.
But it slowly became apparent that my questioner was getting at a more precise sense of racial classification than Americans use today. In the French scheme of things, Obama is not black, and he is not white. He is both. And that is the true meaning of post-racial.
Ideally, this campaign has helped Americans become more comfortable with this reality. The nation is fashioning a functional equivalent of metis -- i.e., post-racial -- largely through a successful exercise in cognitive dissonance by the Obama campaign.
In his nationally televised half-hour campaign ad Wednesday night, viewers saw Obama extolling his white mother and grandparents for their "Midwestern values." They heard him reassuringly say that he had been shaped more by the absence than the presence of his African father -- a statement many of us can sympathize with from our own chaotic childhoods of absent parents and care-giving grandparents but one nonetheless with subliminal political undertones.
And viewers have repeatedly been reminded that it was Patton's army that Obama's grandfather marched in, not one of those shamefully segregated black units that still stir guilt among whites and a mix of pride and anger among blacks. Obama's values in some measure transcend the civil rights struggle. They were its beneficiary.
Overt race-baiting has actually declined as the campaign has progressed, especially since Obama's masterful March 18 speech in Philadelphia that defused the controversy surrounding his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. When discussing race, the media have usually focused on technical and procedural issues such as whether white voters tell pollsters the truth about their intentions to vote for black candidates, rather than on moral and value questions.
An Associated Press-Yahoo News poll in September quantified the potential racist vote -- people who explicitly say they will not vote for Obama because he is "black" -- at about 6 percent of the electorate. (The pollsters helpfully determined that most Republicans would not vote for a Democrat of any color, proving that for some, red and blue are more important than black and white in this election.)
And a Big Ten Battleground Poll of the same vintage suggests that voters who rank race as an important factor will divide nationally between Obama and John McCain pretty much along the same lines as the non-racially-minded population. Go figure.
Those who fear that the pollsters are being deceived could turn out to be right Tuesday night. But grant me this: The campaign has dramatically narrowed the ground on which the politics of race can be practiced in the United States. That is a reality the rest of the world should absorb, acknowledge and get over, as Americans seem to be doing.
jimhoagland@washpost.com
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Voters relieved campaign ending
BYLINE: By Adrienne T. Washington, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; A WASHINGTON NOTE; A04
Catching up with some of the "real Americans," who shared their thoughts with yours truly during this long, long, long presidential election process, about the only thing they agreed about is their glee that the "nastiest campaign" is almost over.
"I'm absolutely sick of it, ... the lack of ethics in this campaign; let's get this election behind us," said Joan Crawford, a Republican from Greenville, Miss
This private high school teacher, who talked to me earlier about women's issues, said she is even more upset that the dishonest "gutter" campaigning in the local and state level elections has been even nastier than on the presidential level.
"I'm just looking for the truth," said Mrs. Crawford, a supporter of Sen. John McCain. She joked that "I have to take a blood pressure pill" after watching election coverage on the television.
Closer to the nation's capital, "Barb," an independent Fairfax County housewife, said: "I just want it to be done; it goes on too long that it's almost obscene."
The mother of six children, one of them with Down syndrome, who is trying to make ends meet in this tight economy, understandably said, "All the money that's being spent on TV commercials and jet travel seems so wasteful."
Indeed, the 2008 presidential campaign has lasted so long that Joan Sadoff, a Philadelphia Democrat, watched her lonely support for Sen. Barack Obama's fledgling candidacy take hold over her cadre of 70-something friends so that today only one of them is a holdout against him.
"We're in the last leg of the journey," said Mrs. Sadoff, a documentary filmmaker. She was cleaning up after a get-out-the-vote training session in her living room that featured Fran Schumer, the sister of the New York senator, when we spoke on Friday.
"What are we going to do next Friday? I'm going to miss the addiction," said Mrs. Sadoff, who spent her own money to volunteer at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Democrat Anniken Davenport - a lawyer, educator and small-businesswoman from Harrisburg, Pa. - was the only one to say "I'm not electioned-out yet," though she also said she'll "be glad when it's over."
However, Mrs. Davenport is "not as confident" and "getting a little nervous" because the race seems closer than polls indicate, particularly in the "Pennsyl-tucky" part of her battleground state.
Checking in with these informed and passionate women confirmed what some of the polls are indicating that decided voters have solidified their choices. Only Barb, a pro-life Catholic, was sitting on the fence until the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn.
"Oh yes, we've decided," Barb said about the way she and her husband, Pat, a bank administrator, are casting their ballot on Tuesday. "When John McCain picked Sarah Palin as vice president, he got our vote."
And they went to see and hear the Alaska governor when she spoke at a Fairfax County park.
Their choice comes even though, as she acknowledged, the couple is concerned about health care costs and they would "definitely benefit from the tax changes particularly that Senator Obama proposed."
But "the tax side is not the biggest selling part for me," she said.
Barb said that even though the campaign season has lasted so long, "it's a sad state of affairs" because the average voter has a hard time deciphering the truth watching campaign commercials. "The campaigns are run on sound bites that make everybody else look bad instead of telling people what you really feel" about the issues.
Also, "it's hard to get all worked up about [the election] because at the national level, it doesn't affect my life." It's just another four years, Barb said.
Not so for Mrs. Sadoff, who said "the passion is greater today" for her candidate.
"This election is different from any other and has the potential to change this country on every front and I think Obama is the person to make it happen," said Mrs. Sadoff, who often points to the Illinois senator's intellect and the image she hopes he will present to the rest of the world. Foreign policy is her main issue.
"I think if we can elect a black president, with our history of racism, it helps the image of America just about more than anything else in the world," she said.
Mrs. Sadoff said she doesn't believe people when they say they are undecided this late in the game. Just as when they "say they don't trust [Obama], which to me is a code that they don't want to vote for a black man ... they are looking for an excuse and just waiting for the right one"
She charged Mr. McCain with playing the "fear factor" and hopes that Mr. Obama will win by a landslide so he will have a mandate and "know that the people of the country are behind him."
Living in central Pennsylvania, Mrs. Davenport is worried that of Mr. McCain's latest strategies, like "Joe the Plumber," and "Marxist" are resonating, which "I find shocking." She faults the lack of education for some of the misconceptions but that might "be my Eastern, elite point of view," she quipped.
Mrs. Davenport is concerned about the high cost of health care, and she thinks Mr. Obama's plan "is a better stab at it than the idiotic tax credits that McCain proposes."
Her support for Mr. Obama solidified after the presidential debates. "This is the time for cool, calm heads of state and not people who don't have a plan like McCain."
The issue of experience or lack thereof, is not relevant for her because "nobody's that experienced."
"What Obama does not have in direct experience, he makes up in temperament," she said. Also, "his on-the-ground [campaign] organization is absolutely superb," which indicates to her that "he might be better than others at running a huge bureaucracy."
Experience is a key factor for Mrs. Crawford, too. However, she questions Mr. Obama's experience, which made her soft support of Mr. McCain stronger. She is "not fooled" about Mrs. Palin but discounts her lack of national experience because "she's vice president and I'm not counting on the president dying in office."
Mrs. Crawford quickly added that "my vote is not against a black man but against the lack of experience. When I hit the experience button, it just doesn't translate."
But her biggest concern is what happens to the country after this divisive "real American" campaign. Sadly, Mrs. Crawford asks, "Where is America in all this? We're so partisan; we've long since lost what the nation is."
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Obama camp changes tax-cut beneficiaries;
Speeches, ads keep lowering threshold
BYLINE: By Donald Lambro, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Barack Obama's middle-class rescue plan is turning into the incredible shrinking tax cut because its original beneficiaries have been reduced in the past few months from taxpayers making less than $250,000 to those earning much less.
The freshman senator, who has made his "middle-class tax cut" the core of his economic agenda, has used differing qualifying income figures in his speeches and ads to identify which income group would see its taxes cut under his proposal. In one TV ad, he reduced the plan's $250,000 threshold by as much as $50,000.
Then, in an interview last week, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, his vice presidential running mate, appeared to cut the income eligibility figure to $150,000, followed by Obama campaign surrogate Bill Richardson, the tax-cutting governor of New Mexico, who further lowered the definition of middle class to $120,000 or less.
"At this rate, it won't take long until Obama is again raising taxes on Americans making as little as $42,000 a year," said Alex Conant, the Republican National Committee's spokesman, referring to Mr. Obama's vote for a Democratic budget resolution that would have let most of President Bush's tax cuts expire, effectively raising income taxes on Americans making $41,500, according to FactCheck.org.
The Obama tax plan's descending income thresholds has not escaped the notice of Sen. John McCain's campaign, nor the RNC's army of researchers, who were sending out a drumbeat of press releases all week, monitoring the time and place of the Obama campaign's changing numbers. Among those changes:
* In July: "If you make $250,000 a year or less, we will not raise your taxes. We will cut your taxes," Mr. Obama said in remarks at Powder Springs, Ga.
* In October: "If you have a job, pay taxes and make less than $200,000 a year, you'll get a tax cut," Mr. Obama said in a TV ad titled "Defining Moment" that has been running across the country.
* Last week: "What we're saying is that [Mr. Bush's tax cuts to the wealthy] ... should go to middle-class people - people making under $150,000 a year," said Mr Biden in an interview with WNEP in Scranton, Pa.
* Friday: Mr. Obama "is basically looking at $120,000 and under [as] among those that are in the middle class and there is a tax cut" for them, Mr. Richardson said on KOA-AM in Denver.
The Obama campaign's varying words on who would be eligible for Mr. Obama's tax cuts left economists Friday scratching their heads and wondering just who would benefit and who would not.
"Every time we look, his plan changes. Anything is possible," said McCain economic adviser Kevin Hassett at the American Enterprise Institute.
The Obama campaign denied moving away from the senator's original tax-cut plan. It said Friday that Mr. Richardson "simply misspoke" when he used the $120,000 figure and "meant to say people making less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased." The statement said: "Senator Obama wouldn't raise taxes on families making less than $250,000."
However, other economic analysts said that the Obama campaign's declining income eligibility levels for his tax cuts raises troubling questions about Mr. Obama's promise to give tax cuts to 95 percent of all taxpayers.
"A lot of people may vote for Obama thinking they are going to get a tax cut are going to get a tax hike," said Phil Kerpen, director of policy at Americans for Prosperity, a free-market advocacy group.
"What is clearly going on here is the changing definition of what constitutes the middle class," said economist Bruce Bartlett, adding that "the vast majority of Americans say they are middle class and very few think of themselves as either rich or poor."
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
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Information generation;
Just as TV defined elections of '60s, Web defines impact of YouTube youth in this vote
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni and Andrea Billups, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: SUNDAY READ; COVER STORY; M04
This year's presidential battle has been compared to every election held in the 1960s - a generational faceoff that will decide the course of the nation and one that's been shaped by the Internet in the same way television affected the contests four decades ago.
If the final result Tuesday is anything like what polls are predicting, 2008 may be closest to 1964, the last year deeply Republican red states such as Virginia and Indiana backed a Democrat for president.
"Forty-four years ago in 1964, when I was a 9-year-old boy, my parents took me down to the circle in downtown Indianapolis to see Lyndon Johnson come to town," said Sen. Evan Bayh, Indiana Democrat, introducing Sen. Barack Obama at a recent rally in Indianapolis. "He was the last Democrat to carry the state of Indiana. I thought I'd bring my boys here today to see the next Democrat who is going to carry the state of Indiana."
Every four years, the politicians tell voters it's a seminal election. This year they could be right.
Just as the 1960s races were defined by television - the Kennedy-Nixon debate steered voters toward the younger and more telegenic candidate, and the violence outside the 1968 Democratic convention was beamed into voters' homes - now a generation later it is the click of a mouse and a YouTube video that puts voters in the middle of the political debate.
On its face, that seems to auger well for Mr. Obama, the 47-year-old former community organizer who as a relative newcomer to Washington could become the nation's first black president. He's facing Republican nominee John McCain, a 72-year-old senator who served decades in the Navy and a quarter century in Congress.
Mr. Obama has harnessed the strength of the Internet, which helped him build a base of support across the globe and take him from little-known candidate to front-runner for Tuesday's election.
The Web has shaped the race, from the Internet video that started it all by depicting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as a 1984-style oppressor to Obamagirl to the shocking sermons of Mr. Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
Team Obama quickly mastered the Web campaign, using it to communicate directly with a growing group of fans and raising record sums of money from people willing to give $5.
Team Obama's Internet group - dubbed "New Media" - was one factor in his defeat of Mrs. Clinton during the Democratic primary.
For his part, Mr. McCain has taken the slow-and-steady approach, building a campaign for the last decade, including his failed 2000 bid for his party's nomination.
And despite joking about his own lack of technology savvy, his campaign has had some successes, including managing to mute criticism from conservative blogs by offering Mr. McCain up to them for regular conference calls and inviting them to join the candidate on the campaign trail.
In the general election, Mr. McCain fought back against Mr. Obama's online dominance with "The One" - a satirical spoof Web video that compared Mr. Obama to Moses parting the Red Sea. He also released an ad arguing Mr. Obama was little more than an international celebrity, comparing the Democrat to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
On the strength of those two videos, Mr. McCain for a short period of time topped Mr. Obama in YouTube views.
But both men were swamped by Miss Hilton, who cut her own spoof Web video announcing that since she'd been dragged into the debate she might as well run for president on a platform combining both the McCain and Obama energy plans. She said when stacked up against someone from "the olden days" and "that other guy," her appeal was obvious: "I'm just hot."
Powered by attention from celebrity gossip sites and the like, her video has received about 8 million views.
YouTube generation
Younger voters have organized on campuses, collected millions of e-mail addresses for text messaging and had key campaign video posted online at YouTube.
Yet despite the staggering efforts to reach Millennials in this year's pivotal presidential election, will renewed efforts to "rock the vote" roll up record youth numbers at the polls?
"That's the big question," says Michael McDonald, a professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University in Virginia, who is an expert on voting trends.
"During the primaries, we've seen much higher voter turnout rates than in 2004, so we have some clue that young people have voted this year. At least at this point, we know that they are registered, so the first part of the puzzle is in place," he said. "We know it's going to be higher than 2004 just because the levels of turnout will be up."
While 20-something voters have historically failed to make an impact on presidential elections, both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain have reached out to them using technology and touting the importance of voting in a hipper way.
"We're pumped, excited and registered," said Stephanie Young, 24, a spokeswoman for the Rock the Vote organization in Washington. "The candidates have learned how to speak young people's language and have done an excellent job tapping into the youth voter movement.
"Young people communicate through social networking like Facebook and MySpace," she said. "The candidates have reached down into the young people's level and they are talking to them in terms that make it more understandable. I think that makes them feel appreciated and sought after and lets them know their votes have been wanted."
Expectations for their votes are high. In January, Time magazine dubbed 2008 the year of the youth voter. With a Generation X candidate in Mr. Obama, and his endorsement by a number of musical stars and celebrities, including talk-show tycoon Oprah Winfrey, the political participation hype is at a fever pitch.
His opponent Mr. McCain has his own youthful running mate in 44-year-old Sarah Palin, who campaigned this last weekend with "The View" star Elisabeth Hasselbeck. She has become the College Republicans' 30-something "It" girl for taking on her power-liberal castmates with her outspoken views from the right.
The 18-29 age group of voters "has become much more Democratic in its political leaning over the past decade," said Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center. "They have come of age politically during the second term of Bill Clinton's administration or the Bush administration. Generational politics suggest that people are imprinted with how the political environment is when they first start paying attention for the first time. The Democratic tilt, which was apparent four years ago, is still looking largely to be that way this time."
Current Pew polls show a 2-1 advantage for Mr. Obama over Mr. McCain among youth voters, he said.
Trickle-up effect
Miss Hilton's generation is having an effect on its elders.
Throughout the campaign, both regular voters and elected officials - Sens. Claire McCaskill, Bob Casey and Amy Klobuchar, to name a few - have said their children were the impetus for backing Mr. Obama.
In Wheeling, W.Va., near the Ohio border, after her college-age kids convinced her Mr. Obama was the right choice, Toni Brancazio took it into her own hands to form a community Obama group. The campaign wasn't investing many resources into the state, because it seemed such a long shot.
"The excitement is there now," she said, adding that even though she is unemployed she has delayed her job search to spend 10 hours every day in the Obama office, phone banking and knocking on doors because, "This is too important."
Now, polls show Mr. Obama within single digits of Mr. McCain in the state as the economy becomes a bigger drag for the Republican ticket.
Carol Myers of Indianapolis was inspired by her college daughter, who had her mom go online to learn about the Illinois senator.
"I'm from the sixties generation and I haven't really believed that anybody since then was open to that larger sense of everyone with a stake in the future," she said.
She said Mr. Obama has become for young people what President Kennedy was for her age group: "I loved Kennedy, he was my hero."
Democratic political strategist James Carville predicted recently that nearly two-thirds of the nation's voters ages 18 to 29 would turn out on Tuesday. He believes Mr. Obama will win the presidency and for the Republicans, "there's going to be nothing left standing."
"The long term is there is not just a lost election here, there is a lost generation," he said.
Electoral map
Mr. Obama has relied on old-fashioned organizing and YouTube generation energy to expand the electoral map, leaving Republicans facing what could be their worst showing since 1964, when Republican candidate Barry Goldwater won just 52 electoral votes.
Based on polls, Democrats are poised to make gains in Virginia, North Carolina and Colorado, which have been solidly Republican for years.
And with Democrats having a near-total lock on the West Coast and Northeast, it could be the beginning of a very powerful political realignment. That's a far cry from just four years ago, when Republicans were gleefully talking about the prospects of a "permanent majority."
But the roots of 1964 produced the conservative movement that eventually gained control of the Republican Party, delivered two terms for President Reagan and, in the 1994 elections, control of Congress for the first time in two generations.
Gotcha
As much as it can help build a candidate, the Internet can also help fuel efforts to bring a candidate down, and some of the biggest moments of the 2008 campaign are thanks to the Internet.
Off the cuff, on the rope line or unbecoming remarks from both candidates - and their running mates - became Internet sensations long before they were picked up on television. The sermons by Mr. Obama's controversial former pastor hit the Internet before television coverage pushed them into the race.
The debate question that sparked the most heated disagreement between Mr. Obama and both his Democratic and Republican rival - about meeting with leaders of rogue nations - came not from a journalist but from a regular citizen, submitted online for the July 2007 YouTube debate.
And even so-called "old media" has been making its mark online.
McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm was used in Democratic attack ads for weeks after telling The Washington Times during an editorial board meeting that was posted on the Internet that the country was facing a "mental recession" and that the United States was a "nation of whiners."
Mr. Obama praised Ronald Reagan in an editorial board meeting with the Reno Gazette, prompting Mrs. Clinton to seize on him as someone who embraced Republican ideals.
Mr. McCain's bristling interview with editors at the Des Moines Register, posted online, helped further the Democratic narrative that he was angry and erratic.
The vice-presidential nominees have not been immune.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's unflattering interview with CBS' Katie Couric and ridiculing on Saturday Night Live were amplified on the Web, and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been used in Republican attack ads after speaking off the cuff about coal on the rope line while a voter's camera was rolling.
He also said at a fundraiser that Mr. Obama would be "tested" with a crisis if he is elected, and a reporter's audio clip of the event quickly made its way to the Web and into a Republican ad.
That's probably fitting for a man whose very selection as running mate was officially announced to the world through a telephone text message.
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
GRAPHIC: [6 Images courtesy of Getty, Associated Press and YouTube.com]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
November 1, 2008 Saturday
Final Edition
Obama spends $2.45 million in ads on Va. stations
BYLINE: TYLER WHITLEY; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-5
If you think you've been seeing a lot of television commercials for Sen. Barack Obama, you are right.
Obama spent almost four times as much money on TV in Virginia in the week between Oct. 21 and Oct. 28 than Sen. John McCain did, The Wisconsin Project, which monitors television advertising, said yesterday.
That spending did not include the 30-minute infomercial that Obama bought Wednesday night.
According to the Wisconsin Project, Obama paid for $2.45 million in commercials on Virginia stations to McCain's $637,000.
"The more you speak, the more likely you are to be heard," said Steve Farnsworth, a political scientist at George Mason University.
Farnsworth said the Obama money might be well-spent in Virginia, because Republicans traditionally have had a more effective turnout operation. This year, however, the Obama turnout operation might match that of McCain, he said.
The two campaigns fought yesterday over a radio ad in which Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., suggested that Obama would cut defense spending, which would hurt Virginia.
"Fellow Virginians, cuts in the defense budget will weaken Virginia's economy and weaken national defense," Warner says. Virginia receives more defense spending than almost any other state.
Warner cites a recent statement by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in which the liberal congressman says Congress will cut defense spending by 25 percent.
But Obama took out a television ad saying he would increase defense spending. He has said he wants to add 65,000 Army troops and 27,000 Marines.
But on a conference call with reporters, George Allen, Virginia's former governor and senator, said the question that needs to be answered is whether Obama as president would veto a bill cutting defense spending if Congress sent the legislation to him.
Allen, former Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, Attorney General Bob McDonnell and Del. Christopher B. Saxman of Staunton, representing the McCain campaign, said the campaign is "closing fast" in Virginia and elsewhere and has enlisted 20,000 volunteers for a get-out-the-vote effort in the state.
Recent polls show McCain trailing Obama in Virginia and nationwide.
Asked why Obama is leading in what was a reliably Republican state, McDonnell said, "Obama has done a better job indicating he stands for change."
But he said McCain is closing the gap by pointing out that the change is not necessarily for the good.
* Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: November 4, 2008
NOTES: BREAKING NEWS 10/31/08 6:13 PM on inRich.com
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
November 1, 2008 Saturday
Final Edition
Warner still has commanding lead in Va. Senate poll
BYLINE: JEFF E. SCHAPIRO; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. B-1
Democrat Mark R. Warner appears to be gliding to an easy victory for U.S. Senate over Jim Gilmore, leading the Republican nearly 2-to-1 in the latest Richmond Times-Dispatch Poll.
Heading into the election Tuesday, Warner is backed by 61 percent; Gilmore by 32 percent. Six percent of voters are undecided and 1 percent prefer other candidates.
The findings essentially are unchanged from three previous polls conducted in September and October for The Times-Dispatch by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington.
The Warner-Gilmore contest is a lopsided affair, in part, because of the Democrat's enormous advantage in fundraising. Warner has collected $12.3 million, compared with $1.7 million by Gilmore.
The money edge, paired with his popularity, has allowed Warner to dominate the debate and quickly drown out Gilmore's criticism.
Also, this has freed Warner to make appeals on behalf of the presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, among Warner voters perhaps considering Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee.
Warner's favorable rating is 63 percent, compared with 34 percent for Gilmore.
Warner succeeded Gilmore as governor in 2002, inheriting a recession-battered state budget that the Democrat - going back on a campaign promise - later stabilized with $1.4 billion in new taxes.
Gilmore, in contrast, was a tax cutter, partially erasing the locally imposed car tax. The initiative, however, proved pricier than anticipated and was capped by Warner at $1 billion a year.
The poll is based on interviews Wednesday and Thursday with 625 registered and likely voters. Results could vary 4 percentage points in either direction.
In September, Warner was ahead of Gilmore, 61 percent to 28 percent. There were similar spreads in two surveys in October.
Warner and Gilmore are vying for the Senate seat of retiring five-term Republican John W. Warner.
Though he has contributed money to Gilmore, John Warner is not saying whether he will vote for him. Twice this week, Warner has said only that he is closely following the campaign.
Mark Warner unsuccessfully challenged the senator in 1996. They later became political allies, with John Warner backing the governor's tax increase for education, social services and law enforcement.
According to the latest Times-Dispatch Poll, Mark Warner leads Gilmore in all areas of the state, though Warner is barely ahead in the Shenandoah Valley and Piedmont, both Republican strongholds.
Warner also leads among blacks and whites, and is pulling 32 percent of self-identified Republicans.
Two other polls released yesterday affirmed Warner's frontrunner status.
A survey by Roanoke College's Center for Community Research showed Warner outpacing Gilmore 57 percent to 22 percent.
The CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corp. Poll put Warner in front, 63 percent to 35 percent.
Warner maintains big lead
Former Gov. Mark R. Warner continues to lead former Gov. Jim Gilmore in regions across the state, according to a poll conducted for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Q: If the 2008 election for Virginia's U.S. Senate seat were held today, would you vote for Mark Warner, the Democrat, Jim Gilmore, the Republican, or one of the other party candidates?
STATE
Gilmore - 32%
Warner - 61%
Undecided/other - 7%
REGION
* Northern Virginia
Gilmore - 26%
Warner - 68%
Undecided/other - 6%
* Shenandoah/Piedmont
Gilmore - 44%
Warner - 48%
Undecided/other - 8%
* Richmond Metro
Gilmore - 36%
Warner - 56%
Undecided/other - 8%
* Hampton Roads
Gilmore - 30%
Warner - 62%
Undecided/other - 8%
* Lynchburg/Southside
Gilmore - 33%
Warner - 63%
Undecided - 4%
* Roanoke/Southwest
Gilmore - 28%
Warner - 64%
Undecided/other - 8%
* Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: November 4, 2008
NOTES: BREAKING NEWS 10/31/08 12:59 PM on inRich.com
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
November 1, 2008 Saturday
Obama spends $2.45 million in ads on Va. stations
BYLINE: Tyler Whitley, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Nov. 1--If you think you've been seeing a lot of television commercials for Sen. Barack Obama, you are right.
Obama spent almost four times as much money on TV in Virginia in the week between Oct. 21 and Oct. 28 than Sen. John McCain did, The Wisconsin Project, which monitors television advertising, said yesterday.
That spending did not include the 30-minute infomercial that Obama paid for Wednesday night.
According to the Wisconsin Project, Obama paid for $2.45 million in commercials on Virginia stations to McCain's $637,000.
"The more you speak, the more likely you are to be heard," said Steve Farnsworth, political scientist at George Mason University.
Farnsworth said the Obama money might be well-spent in Virginia, because Republicans traditionally have had a more effective turnout operation. This year, however, the Obama turnout operation might match that of McCain's, he said.
The two campaigns fought yesterday over a radio ad in which Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., suggested that Obama would cut defense spending, which would hurt Virginia.
"Fellow Virginians, cuts in the defense budget will weaken Virginia's economy and weaken national defense," Warner says. Virginia receives more defense spending than almost any other state.
Warner cites a recent statement by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in which the liberal congressman says Congress will cut defense spending by 25 percent.
But Obama took out a television ad saying he would increase defense spending. He has said he wants to add 65,000 Army troops and 27,000 Marines.
But on a conference call with reporters, George Allen, Virginia's former governor and senator, said the question that needs to be answered is whether Obama as president would veto a bill cutting defense spending if Congress sent the bill to him.
Allen, former Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, Attorney General Bob McDonnell and Del. Christopher B. Saxman of Staunton, representing the McCain campaign, said the campaign is "closing fast" in Virginia and elsewhere and has enlisted 20,000 volunteers for a get-out-the-vote effort in the state.
Recent polls show McCain trailing Obama in Virginia and nationwide.
Asked why Obama is leading in what was a reliably Republican state, McDonnell said, "Obama has done a better job indicating he stands for change."
But he said McCain is closing the gap by pointing out that the change is not necessarily for the good.
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081101-RV-Obama-spends-2.45-million-in-ads-on-Va-stations-1101
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
November 1, 2008 Saturday
Warner still has commanding lead in Va. Senate poll
BYLINE: Jeff E. Schapiro, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Nov. 1--Democrat Mark R. Warner appears to be gliding to an easy victory for U.S. Senate over Jim Gilmore, leading the Republican nearly 2-to-1 in the latest Richmond TimesDispatch Poll.
Heading into the election Tuesday, Warner is backed by 61 percent; Gilmore by 32 percent. Six percent of voters are undecided and 1 percent prefer other candidates.
The findings essentially are unchanged from three previous polls conducted in September and October for The Times-Dispatch by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington, D.C.
The Warner-Gilmore contest is a lopsided affair, in part, because of the Democrat's enormous advantage in fundraising. Warner has collected $12.3 million, compared with $1.7 million by Gilmore.
The money edge, paired with his popularity, has allowed Warner to dominate the debate and quickly drown out Gilmore's criticism.
Also, this has freed Warner to make appeals on behalf of the presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, among Warner voters perhaps considering Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee.
Warner's favorable rating is 63 percent, compared with 34 percent for Gilmore.
Warner succeeded Gilmore as governor in 2002, inheriting a recession-battered state budget that the Democrat -- going back on a campaign promise -- later stabilized with $1.4 billion in new taxes.
Gilmore, in contrast, was a tax cutter, partially erasing the locally imposed car tax. The initiative, however, proved pricier than anticipated and was capped by Warner at $1 billion a year.
The poll is based on interviews Wednesday and Thursday with 625 registered and likely voters. Results could vary 4 percentage points in either direction.
In September, Warner was ahead of Gilmore, 61 percent to 28 percent. There were similar spreads in two surveys in October.
Warner and Gilmore are vying for the Senate seat of retiring five-term Republican John W. Warner.
Though he has contributed money to Gilmore, John Warner is not saying whether he will vote for him. Twice this week, Warner has said only that he is closely following the campaign.
Mark Warner unsuccessfully challenged the senator in 1996. They later became political allies, with John Warner backing the governor's tax increase for education, social services and law enforcement.
According to the latest Times-Dispatch Poll, Mark Warner leads Gilmore in all areas of the state, though Warner is barely ahead in the Shenandoah Valley and Piedmont, both Republican strongholds.
Warner also leads among blacks and whites, and is pulling 32 percent of self-identified Republicans.
Two other polls released yesterday affirmed Warner's frontrunner status.
A survey by Roanoke College's Center for Community Research showed Warner outpacing Gilmore 57 percent to 22 percent.
The CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corp. Poll put Warner in front, 63 percent to 35 percent.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081101-RV-Warner-still-has-commanding-lead-in-Va-Senate-poll-1101
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
November 1, 2008 Saturday
Metro Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B5
Now Joe the plumber is a foreign policy expert?
The nation's most famous plumber endorsed John McCain Thursday (big surprise), then agreed with someone in the audience who asked whether a vote for Obama would be a "vote for the death of Israel."
So now the guy's an expert on foreign policy as well as the tax code? (Actually, his understanding of the tax code is equally suspect.) The McCain campaign distanced itself from Joe the plumber's remarks, but put out an incredibly dishonest, misleading and thoroughly discredited ad claiming Obama had said Iran wasn't a threat.
Less than a week to go, and this is starting to become a limbo contest: How low will John McCain go?
-- Dan Radmacher
Tweeting terrorism
A few months ago, The RT started twittering (www.twitter.com/RTEditorial). Who knew we were on the fore of terrorist technology? A draft Army intelligence report concludes that the innocuous microblogging site is ripe for abuse by terrorists, and even describes how they might do it.
Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News characterized it well, describing the paper as "more like a student exercise than a finished intelligence assessment."
-- C. Trejbal
From the blog
http://blogs.roanoke.com/roundtable/
LOAD-DATE: November 4, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 1, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
RICHMOND | Hours before Virginia voters head to the polls, the NAACP will go to federal court to demand that more voting machines be placed in minority polling places.
A hearing in federal court was set for 3:15 p.m. Monday after the organization renewed its motion Friday to redistribute voting machines, extend voting hours, and make paper ballots available in some precincts.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sued last week, alleging the state was unprepared for Tuesday's huge turnout in the presidential election. The group withdrew the request Thursday after mediation with state officials.
NAACP officials said they did not expect any new hearing before the election. But NAACP President Ben Jealous said the organization concluded Friday that the problems still exist .
Hampton Roads
last day for absentee voting
Voter registrars' offices will be open today for in-person absentee voting at the following locations:
n\Chesapeake: Registrar's office, 411 Cedar Road, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Russell Memorial Library, 2808 Taylor Road, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
n\Norfolk: Registrar's office, City Hall, Room 808, 810 Union St., 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
n\Portsmouth: Registrar's office, 801 Crawford St., 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
n\Suffolk: Registrar's office, 425 W. Washington St., Suite 4, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
n\Virginia Beach: Registrar's office, Municipal Center, Building 14, 2449 Princess Anne Road, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Department of Motor Vehicles, 3551 Buckner Blvd. and 1712 Donna Blvd., 8 a.m. to noon.
military
Obama disputes 25 percent claim
Barack Obama struck back Friday at a claim by the John McCain campaign that Obama would cut defense spending 25 percent - an attack that could cost Obama votes in Hampton Roads, with its concentration of military forces and defense contractors.
In a news release, Obama's campaign called the Republican TV and radio ads "desperate and dishonest."
The Democrat began airing his own TV ad in the Norfolk market in response. It quotes Robert Kagan, a military adviser to McCain, saying that "Obama wants to increase defense spending. He wants to add 65,000 troops to the Army and recruit 27,000 more Marines ... to fight terrorism."
The McCain ads are based on a statement made by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.
Despite the Obama rebuttal, Republicans continued the attack Friday. In a conference call with Virginia reporters, a group of prominent McCain supporters, including former U.S. Sen. George Allen and Attorney General Bob McDonnell, argued that congressional Democrats will push next year for defense spending cuts that, in McDonnell's words, "will be devastating for the national defense and for Virginia."
The defense spending attack will be a key part of McCain's "closing argument," particularly in Hampton Roads, McDonnell added.
Virginia
Chris Rock at Opera House
The Obama camp is tapping star power for a final weekend of campaigning in Virginia.
Comedian Chris Rock will lead a rally at 7 tonight at Norfolk's Harrison Opera House. Doors will open at 6 p.m. Admission is free, but the campaign recommends requesting a spot in advance at www. va.barackobama.com/vachrisrock.
Also today, Obama's campaign offer s students at Virginia Union, Virginia Commonwealth and Virginia State universities a chance to meet hip-hop artist Jay-Z Carter, media mogul Russell Simmons and music executive Kevin Liles. A student from each school will be chosen from among students who volunteer by 9:45 a.m. today at offices in Richmond and Petersburg to go door to door for Obama. The stars will lead a rally at Virginia Union's Barco-Stevens Hall. Doors open at 5:45 p.m.; the rally begins at 6:15 p.m. No tickets are required.
Suffolk
State board sends staff to help out
The State Board of Elections has sent at least four staff members over the past week or so to help the Suffolk registrar's office meet the huge demand from absentee voters, said Valarie Jones, deputy secretary of the state board. Suffolk is one of a handful of offices in Virginia receiving the extra help, Jones said. Virginia Beach also has received some assistance.
The state board offered its services to localities with the biggest increases in new voter registrations, Jones said. Some registrars said they didn't need the help.
- Dave Forster, The Pilot
newspapers
Doonesbury has no doubt about Obama
Some newspaper editors are pondering how to deal with a "Doonesbury" comic strip for Wednesday that assumes Barack Obama will win the presidency.
C reator Garry Trudeau drew a week's strips showing his characters reacting to an Obama win. He offered no option for a John McCain win.
- From Pilot and wire reports
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 1, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Candidates enter final stretch
The Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa
While John McCain predicted an upset, Barack Obama invading his rival's home state with TV ads Friday as the presidential race headed into a hectic final weekend.
McCain, in Hanoverton, Ohio, charged that his Democratic rival "began his campaign in the liberal left lane of politics and has never left it."
In front of several thousand people on an unusually warm Halloween day in Iowa, Obama said, "What you started here in Iowa has swept the nation." His victory in the state's Democratic caucuses on Jan. 3 set him on the path to his party's nomination.
Aides announced that Obama would air TV commercials in McCain's home state of Arizona as well as in North Dakota and Georgia. He had run ads in the latter two states earlier in the campaign before suspending that effort.
McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, dismissed the Arizona ads as a waste. "We encourage them to pick other states that we intend to win" to spend their money, he said.
"We are witnessing perhaps, I believe, one of the greatest comebacks since John McCain won the primary," Davis said.
McCain, scheduled to appear on "Saturday Night Live" tonight, was on the second day of a bus tour through Ohio, which has voted with the winner in each presidential election for two decades. "We're going to win in Ohio. We're a few points down, but we're coming back and we're coming back strong," he said.
Later Friday, Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger joined him at a rally in Columbus. "John McCain has served his country longer in a POW camp than his opponent has in the United States Senate," Schwarzenegger said. "I only play an action hero in the movies. John McCain is a real action hero."
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
GRAPHIC: GOP presidential nominee John McCain, left, predicts an upset over Democratic nominee Barack Obama, right, on Nov. 4.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
November 1, 2008 Saturday
Suburban Edition
GOP Slide in Mich. Hews to Economy;
Democrats Say They Expect to Gain
BYLINE: Paul Kane; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
Almost everything seems to be on the wane in the self-proclaimed birthplace of the Republican Party.
Jackson County, population of about 150,000, is on pace for about 1,400 foreclosures this year. Unemployment hovers around 11 percent. Talk of the collapse of one of the Big Three automakers permeates local conversation. One of the area's biggest employers, a giant GM plant that builds increasingly unpopular sport-utility vehicles, has become a symbol of the direction people think things are headed.
With all that has gone wrong, the prospects of Democrat Mark Schauer have gone up. The state senator declared last week that his campaign was going "as good as I could have imagined," and Democrats are hopeful of capturing a House seat that's been in GOP hands for decades.
"What the nation is experiencing now is what Michigan has been experiencing the last eight years," said Schauer, 47, who is running neck and neck in his bid to unseat Rep. Tim Walberg (R).
Schauer hopes to be one of several Rust Belt Democrats to take advantage of resentment about the economy. Party leaders are eyeing more than a dozen seats held by House Republicans across the Midwest, a down-on-its-luck region that could provide a huge chunk of the roughly 30 seats that are expected to flip to Democrats.
It's a dramatic turnaround for what was once fertile ground for Republicans. After the 1998 midterm elections, Republicans held six of the eight governor's mansions in the Midwestern states whose universities are part of the Big 10 Conference. They held nine of the 16 Senate seats in the region. The House had just elected as speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), a former high school wrestling coach.
After Tuesday's election, Republicans are expected to hold one or two governorships in those same eight states, which are likely to send four or five Republicans to the Senate. The Midwesterner who now leads the House Republicans, Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio), is fighting for his position.
The sagging manufacturing-based economy has played a central role in almost every successful Democratic campaign, particularly in Michigan. A private economist recently labeled the state's loss of 497,000 jobs this decade as an "unprecedented, Depression level" shedding of 10.5 percent of its total workforce.
The state is facing such tough times that one embattled GOP incumbent, Rep. Joe Knollenberg, is not suffering politically for his support of the controversial $700 billion rescue plan, in large part because voters think the auto industry needs a similar boost. That's a departure from most races in most other states, where support for the rescue plan is weighing down those who backed it.
"We've been through so many rough spots here, I don't think most people blame Joe," said Dennis G. Cowan, chairman of the Republican Party of Oakland County.
Instead, Michigan Democrats are finding success in blaming President Bush for the state's economic woes.
"I would like to think of myself as a Republican at heart," said Travis Beard, 31, co-founder of Worry Free, a landscaping company with 27 employees. But Beard's company is struggling from a heavy influx of competition, mostly, he said, from laid-off white-collar workers trying to make ends meet. Beard used to charge from $14 to $15 per square foot of lawn maintenance, but he has slashed his prices to $10 per square foot to stay competitive.
"I'm ready for change. I'm ready for the gas prices to drop," Beard said at the Royal Oak Chamber of Commerce's awards dinner in Detroit's northern suburbs. He expects to vote for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president and is not sure what he will decide about Knollenberg's race.
That Knollenberg, 74, an eight-term veteran, is fighting for votes from the local Chamber is a sign of the tough political times. "They're putting the blame on Bush, and they're connecting me to Bush," he said after the awards dinner at Red Run Golf Club.
Knollenberg faces other challenges, too. After working with the entire state delegation to secure funding for a $25 billion loan guarantee to help automakers make the transition to building fuel-efficient cars, the credit crisis hit and put the industry in an even more dire situation.
Then Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) folded his presidential campaign in Michigan, deciding that the economic woes there made victory impossible. The National Republican Congressional Committee also abandoned plans for an ad campaign on Knollenberg's behalf.
Knollenberg is not used to such tough fights -- his campaign war chest still inexplicably had more than $1.5 million as of mid-October -- and is doing almost all the campaign work on his own. His 69-year-old wife, Sandie, has been going door to door five hours a day.
His opponent, former state senator Gary Peters, is running a high-tech voter turnout program with the help of Obama's campaign, an operation that Democratic leaders have identified as one of the nation's best. A couple of dozen volunteers make 5,000 calls a day from numbers listed on bar-encoded sheets so contact data can be maintained. Last weekend, volunteers dropped off 85,000 door-hangers with Peters's image, a strategy that will be repeated this weekend at the other 85,000 homes in the district.
Peters also is focusing intensely on tough economic times that have hit even wealthy Oakland County, which has lost 75,000 jobs this decade. "Most people are coming to the conclusion that the policies of the past have failed us," he said in an interview. "It all ties in with the insecurity people are feeling."
Walberg and Knollenberg's battles underscore the difficulty for Republicans. Walberg, 57, is a first-term representative from the GOP's conservative wing -- he is opposed to abortion rights, government spending and regulation. Knollenberg is a classic country-club Republican whose seat on the Appropriations Committee has allowed him to seed his district with tens of millions a year.
In Jackson, Schauer works out of the county's Democratic Party headquarters on Mechanic Street across the street from Dicker & Deal Cash Center, a pawnshop promising "instant cash" for DVDs, shotguns and bows and arrows. Not far from here, the first convention of the Republican Party was held in 1854.
When he won his state Senate seat in 2002, Schauer became the first Democrat to represent portions of Jackson County since 1899. Mapping out his campaign a year ago, Schauer assumed the Republican presidential nominee would carry the district, just as Bush did by more than eight percentage points in 2004. Instead, his internal polling shows Obama leading McCain by as many as nine points.
"It is truly kitchen-table economics," Schauer said. "We've got to stop the hemorrhaging."
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
November 1, 2008 Saturday
Regional Edition
Gubernatorial Race In Wash. State Elicits That Deja Vu Feeling;
In Rematch, Rivals Again Tied in Polls
BYLINE: Karl Vick; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
In Washington state, all the elements are in place to make Nov. 4 feel a lot like Feb. 2. Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi are running for governor, and polls show a dead heat.
"It's pretty amazing. It was a dead-even tie four years ago, and most polls show it a dead-even tie this time," said Todd Donovan, a political scientist at Western Washington University. "There's a 'Groundhog Day' kind of thing to it."
In 2004, it took two months and three recounts to determine which candidate Washington voters had selected as their governor. Rossi, a Republican, was certified the winner first. But it was Democrat Gregoire who went on to spend the next four years in the governor's mansion, after a judge ruled that the final recount could include ballots discovered six weeks after voting ended. The official margin of 133 votes was .00475 percent of the 2.8 million ballots cast.
Rossi retreated to his commercial real estate business, wrote a book and awaited the rematch now unfolding across a state that has seen it all before. "Re-elect Rossi," read buttons in the overflow crowd that recently greeted the candidate in Silverdale, across Puget Sound from the governor's Seattle stronghold.
"We're going to finish what we started, folks," Rossi told the crowd. "Because of your help, we're going to win."
"Again."
Gregoire smiled a knowing smile in the booth of the diner where her mother worked as a short-order cook in what remains of downtown Auburn, now a Seattle suburb.
"Anger is a powerful incentive," the incumbent said, noting that Rossi's supporters spent four years simmering with him. "In June, people were pretty well locked in to where they were four years ago."
"It never ends -- literally," said Stuart Elway, a Seattle pollster. "This is a governor's race that's been going on for five years!"
In fact, a fair amount has changed since Round One. Gregoire has a record to defend. As governor, she has increased spending on education, health insurance for children and the environment. The expansion in government, including a rainy day fund, accompanied a surging state economy that added a quarter-million jobs and doubled exports.
The irrepressibly cheerful Rossi highlights his experience as a businessman and a successful budgeter, citing his work as chairman of the state Senate Ways and Means Committee. He calls Gregoire, who has worked only in state government, a captive of unions. She casts him as a hard-hearted conservative whose amiable sales patter obscures a social agenda out of line with the state's residents.
With the state government facing a $3.2 billion deficit amid falling tax revenue, the race sizes up as yet another referendum on whom to blame for the hard times voters see rumbling toward them.
"That's the million-dollar question," Donovan said. "How much are people going to blame her for the economic conditions, which aren't as bad here as they are in other states but are still down."
The ballot is also different. In the latest incarnation of Washington's ever-changing electoral system, candidates now appear on the ballot not as representatives of a party but as individuals who "prefer [fill-in-the-blank] party." Gregoire filled the blank "Democratic."
Rossi opted for "prefers GOP party."
"That is way smart," said Ryan Yokoyama, 23, from his perch at a seafood stand in Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. Polling shows that a significant number of voters do not know that the abbreviation stands for Grand Old Party, a nickname for the Republican Party. Political professionals, including Gregoire, say that in a cycle in which President Bush has so degraded the value of the Republican brand, Rossi's choice of words could bring him as much as an additional 2 percent of the vote.
But the 2008 ballot also harbors potential for Gregoire. Because the Nov. 4 ballot is restricted to the top two vote-getters in the state's sole primary, the general election includes no third-party candidates who might bleed support from her Seattle base.
Rossi said the tight 2004 race was evidence of his crossover appeal, coining the term "Rossi-crats" years before "Obamacan" had entered the political lexicon.
"People have a different relationship with their governor than other offices," Rossi said in an interview. "They want to like their candidate for governor."
He offered the remark after listing liberal states -- Vermont, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Rhode Island -- that have Republican governors. But it also underscored misgivings about Gregoire's persona. Widely viewed as austere and even stern on camera, Gregoire is campaigning as "Chris" this time around; in 2004, she was "Christine."
Rossi still calls her that.
"He's a salesman," Gregoire said. "That's his profession. He keeps talking about change. Tries to saddle up next to Obama."
Gregoire's approval ratings, which started low after the recount soap opera, climbed above 50 percent early last year and have held steady. Public opinion surveys show voters' evaluations of state government as "not great, but the point is no clamor for change," said Elway, the pollster. "There's no throw-the-bums-out atmosphere."
Tough ads from both sides saturate Seattle television and provide grist on the stump. Gregoire tells of comforting an 8-year-old girl frightened by a "fearmongering" Rossi spot that said the state lost track of 1,300 sexual offenders. Rossi says Gregoire's spots distort his views on reducing the minimum wage, a potent issue in hard times.
The latest poll, released Monday by the University of Washington, showed the dead-even tie loosening and Gregoire ahead by six points.
The survey put Sen. Barack Obama's lead over Sen. John McCain at 21 points, or three times the margin Sen. John F. Kerry had over Bush in 2004. That theoretically offers down-ballot Democrats coattails three times as long.
Gregoire said she has learned the hard way to take nothing for granted.
"I know best," the candidate told volunteers setting out to canvass the suburb of Des Moines on a recent afternoon. "Every vote counts."
Rossi, cheered by the full house at the Silverdale community center, said he expects a different outcome from voters and the state's revamped electoral apparatus.
"It's the number one question I get all over the state," he said. "If I win it again, is the same thing going to happen?"
"I tell people, 'There's no way I'd do this again on the same playing field.' "
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Kris Holland -- Associated Press; Gov. Chris Gregoire and Republican challenger Dino Rossi play nice after a debate last month in Yakima, Wash. Rossi lost their 2004 face-off by 133 votes.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
November 1, 2008 Saturday
Met 2 Edition
True Believers In McCain Flock to Pa.
BYLINE: Eli Saslow; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
DATELINE: STATE COLLEGE, Pa.
He hated the helplessness of watching John McCain's efforts from afar, so Joe White, 62, loaded up his trailer in South Carolina and drove here last weekend. He set up camp in a Wal-Mart parking lot, bought a map of State College and started knocking on strangers' doors -- 25 houses per hour, 10 hours each day.
On Tuesday morning, more than four days and 1,100 houses into his trip, White approached a rancher with a McCain sign in the front yard. Beverly Blood, 71, answered the door.
"You're here for John McCain?" Blood said. "I'm for him, too, but some people are saying it's not looking so good."
"Well," White said, "I'm one of those people who thinks it's not over until the fat lady sings."
During the last two weeks, thousands of volunteers such as White have flocked to Pennsylvania -- the land of last resort for McCain's campaign. Among staffers and volunteers working frantically in this state, the typical line of thought goes like this: If McCain can somehow score an upset in Pennsylvania, he will earn 21 electoral votes, compensate for potential losses in some traditionally Republican states and narrowly defeat Sen. Barack Obama for the presidency. On their T-shirts and hats, McCain volunteers reduce the strategy to a simple slogan: Twenty-one.
It's the promise of twenty-one that persuaded McCain's campaign to redirect so many of its efforts to Pennsylvania; that drew McCain and vice presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the state for eight rallies this week alone; that compelled McCain to confess to a crowd in Hershey, "We need to win in Pennsylvania on November the 4th."
Pennsylvania has not gone for a Republican candidate for president in 20 years, and several polls indicate Obama maintains a double-digit lead here. But, on an electoral map that looks increasingly grim for McCain in swing states such as Virginia, Colorado and Florida, advisers said they have reasons to hope in Pennsylvania. Obama lost badly to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in this state's primary, in part because he struggled to connect with white working-class voters. Because Pennsylvania does not allow early voting, McCain has more time to make his comeback.
For the strategy to work, McCain will have to woo unprecedented support from registered Democrats, who outnumber Republicans by more than 1.2 million. His campaign helped launch more than a dozen Democrats for McCain groups across the state, and it bused in Democratic volunteers from New Jersey and New York. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a top fundraiser for Clinton's campaign, will spend several days speaking to Democrats on McCain's behalf.
"I think Pennsylvania could be a big surprise to the conventional thought in the Democratic Party," Rothschild said. "Pennsylvania is a conservative Democratic state, and John McCain can win it. We are targeting independents and Democrats, and they're just not comfortable with Barack Obama's plan for America, because it's outside of the mainstream. This is the most important thing I've done in politics. The election could turn right here."
Obama's campaign has responded to McCain's efforts by fortifying its own operation in Pennsylvania. Obama held a rally Tuesday in Chester, and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., visited four cities last week. Less than 16 hours after a Palin rally in State College on Tuesday night, Bill Clinton took the same stage and spoke on Obama's behalf.
"As unlikely as it is for them to succeed [in Pennsylvania], we've got to take that seriously, and we will," said David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager.
Said McCain spokesman Peter Feldman: "Both campaigns see Pennsylvania as in play."
Which is why White, the South Carolina volunteer, decided to travel to this college town in central Pennsylvania last week. While driving through the state, he listened to a cycle of competing campaign commercials on radio stations and heard news broadcasts announcing one small-town presidential rally after the next. White had never volunteered for a presidential candidate before, but he thinks that McCain would make a better guardian of the country than Obama. "I think we'll be safer with him as commander in chief, and that's too important to mess with," White said.
He took a 10-day vacation from his small business as a medical supplier and signed up for a volunteer program called McCain's Mavericks. When he arrived in State College, he visited McCain's local office to procure a list of addresses for registered voters.
As he trudged through the snow, White drew enough cold stares to understand McCain's challenge. For the first time in 30 years, Centre County has more registered Democrats than Republicans -- the result of a 10,000-person registration drive for Obama at Penn State University. Among its 100,000 voters, Centre now has 5,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. White knocked on the doors of enough bitter conservatives to learn that "these kind of places are just getting more liberal."
But White also learned enough about politics in Pennsylvania to maintain his optimism. Even two of the state's most powerful Democrats -- Gov. Edward G. Rendell and Rep. John P. Murtha -- seemed to suggest McCain had a chance. Rendell told a reporter that, "the undecideds are most likely not going to go in Obama's direction." Murtha recently told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that "there is no question western Pennsylvania is a racist area," a comment that has put his own reelection in jeopardy even though he apologized. A new Mason-Dixon poll this week showed Obama's lead in Pennsylvania at a tenuous 4 percent -- though other polls still show him with a larger margin.
"We're really ahead in this election, but we're not going to let anybody know until next Tuesday," White told one McCain supporter who answered the door. "You'd be surprised how many people I've already talked to around here who said they just won't vote for Obama. I'm telling you, there's a whole community of us."
The McCain believers showed up en masse Tuesday night on the Penn State campus, forming a 7,000-person line in the snow for a chance to attend a Palin rally in a student gymnasium. They came to see the potential vice president, but many supporters said they were more impressed by the crowd. Three thousand people crammed onto the floor, two levels of arena seats filled to capacity and hundreds of people waved McCain signs. It was a visual reinforcement of Republican support.
Alex Smith, a Penn State junior and the president of the College Republicans, stood shirtless in the upper deck, his chest painted with a purple "C" to help spell out "MAVERICK." He had been teased regularly for the last three months, an outsider on a campus dominated by Obama supporters. Now, he gestured at the crowd. "It feels good to be around like minds," he said.
Ken Pasch, a 55-year-old independent, helped direct traffic near the stage. He had "pinballed between Obama and McCain" before finally deciding to support McCain three weeks ago. "I think there's a chance McCain can take it," he said. "Otherwise, I wouldn't be here."
Mitch Hagmaier, a 36-year-old Democrat, stood near the entrance and pointed out a handful of other Democrats he recognized in the crowd. A self-described "national security" voter, Hagmaier had decided to support McCain after Obama defeated Clinton in the Democratic primary. For the last three weeks, Hagmaier had volunteered in McCain's State College office six days each week, calling undecided voters from 5:30 p.m. until 9 p.m.
"If McCain can hit Pennsylvania, he has it made," Hagmaier said. "It's striking how many registered Democrats are here or working in the office. We're starting to get some momentum going our way. With Palin coming here, and this crowd, you can feel it starting to turn."
But after Palin spoke, the crowd exited the arena to a somber reminder of the difficult task ahead. More than two hundred Obama supporters stood across the street, handing out bumper stickers and waving signs. As the Palin crowd walked by, a few student Democrats held up a sign showing Obama's lead in the Pennsylvania polls, and began to taunt.
"Scoreboard," they chanted, over and over.
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Carol Guzy -- The Washington Post; Joe White, a volunteer who drove from South Carolina to canvass for McCain, shows Beverly Blood and her dog Zoey a photo of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from a rally at Penn State University.
IMAGE; Photos By Carol Guzy -- The Washington Post; During the last two weeks, thousands of volunteers such as Joe White have flocked to Pennsylvania to canvass for McCain.
IMAGE; After White got a list of addresses for registered voters in State College, he got to work.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
November 1, 2008 Saturday
Met 2 Edition
Battling on the Other Side's Turf;
Obama Presence in Rural Va. Symbolizes Effort to Compete Across the Map
BYLINE: Kevin Merida; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
DATELINE: CHASE CITY, Va.
Highway 47 winds past Elke's Dog Resort, past the big yard full of old tires and shiny hubcaps, and the barren, barbed-wired fields with horses in the distance. Like many small towns in rural America, this one has a Main Street, which you'll come to soon enough, and right there next to the Municipal Building is the first presidential campaign office that longtime residents can remember seeing.
Sen. Barack Obama's field office here was once a dress shop but is now the hub for a four-county voter turnout operation in Southside Virginia, where Democrats typically get clobbered. The roster of Democratic politicians who have been whipped in this region is impressive. Take Mecklenburg County, where Chase City is located: Jim Webb was beaten here by 19 points in 2006, Tim Kaine by 12 points in 2005, John Kerry by 16 points in 2004, Al Gore by 16 points in 2000. Even Mark Warner, the most successful Democrat of note in Southside Virginia, lost in Mecklenburg County en route to winning the governorship in 2001.
That Obama would open an office here, one of at least 49 across the state, is as much a curiosity as it is a symbol of the campaign's efforts to stretch the electoral map well beyond traditional Democratic territory. It is a strategy that is testing the relationship between politics and community, especially in small towns like Chase City, where the canvassers are local volunteers who often eat, pray and shop with those whose votes they are soliciting.
Gayle Clancy, who has lived here for 22 years and owns the Main Street Cafe, views the Obama office as a marvel, even though she never votes, will not vote next week, and considers politics a dirty business "all the way down to town politics." Still. "This is the first time I remember seeing a presidential campaign office since I've been living here. Absolutely. I was very, very surprised. I was like, 'Wow!' They're there until 10 o'clock at night sometimes."
Recently, the Obama campaign office had a bomb scare -- false alarm -- and the mere fact of it became a happening. A package received in the mail contained a smudged return address from Chevy Chase, Md., and because volunteers weren't expecting the parcel -- and had been alerted by the campaign hierarchy to report suspicious mailings -- local police were called. This set in motion a five-hour chain of events that included evacuating the office and an adjacent building, yellow-taping the block, calling in the Virginia State Police, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Department and the city's volunteer fire department and rescue squad, and notifying federal authorities.
"They even sent in the little robot," said Clancy. She was referring to the state's bomb-detecting robot, whose presence elicited oohs and ahhs from the gathered crowd. In the end, all the commotion was over a padded manila envelope containing Obama buttons and bumper stickers donated by a Montgomery County couple.
Volunteers working long hours to mine votes in Southside Virginia -- the region east of the Blue Ridge Mountains and south of the James River -- have had bigger problems than false bomb scares. Barry Carter, a small-business owner and chairman of the Occoneechee tribe in Virginia, bought 200 signs through the Democratic Party and put them up in the Clarksville area of Mecklenburg. He soon discovered that more than 150 of them had disappeared, and a handful more were slashed, he said. The peculiar thing, Carter noted, was that the Obama signs had been placed next to those of Democratic congressional candidate Tom Perriello, and his signs were untouched. "Both are Democrats. They're running on similar issues," Carter said of Obama and Perriello. "In our mind, it's a racial issue."
Carter reported the signs as stolen to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Department. "Every campaign, we have problems with signs somewhere," said Maj. James Snead, the chief deputy sheriff, who said patrols had been beefed up in the neighborhoods where the Obama signs had disappeared.
While a recent Washington Post poll had Obama with an eight-point lead in the state, the difficulties in Southside Virginia cannot be underestimated. Democrats have long struggled in rural America. According to polling data, Obama trails Sen. John McCain among rural voters both nationally and in Virginia, pulling 40 percent in the nation and 43 percent in the state. Those percentages roughly match Sen. John F. Kerry's performance in 2004.
The 5th Congressional District contains the heart of Southside, landscape that is both flat and hilly and steeped in history. This is where Robert E. Lee surrendered and Harry Byrd resisted school integration, where textile mills died and tobacco production is mostly a romantic memory. The district's politics are conservative, as embodied by six-term congressman Virgil Goode. Elected as a Democrat in 1996 -- perhaps the most conservative House Democrat in the nation -- he soon found political life too uncomfortable under his own party's banner and ran for reelection in 2000 as an independent. He switched parties in 2002, and has been running successfully as a Republican ever since.
McCain has but 21 offices in the state, and no heavy presence in Southside, but he has Goode and George Allen and Jerry Kilgore, all Republicans who have done well here. "We think we're going to do very well in all of Southside," said McCain spokeswoman Gail Gitcho. "They're always going to have more offices than us, more staff than us, more money than us. But we have our battle-tested staff and volunteers who know how to win Virginia."
Not many political observers are betting on Obama in Southside -- even Obama supporters are uncertain. But campaign spokesman Clark Stevens said making the effort is the point. "It's important for us to have a presence in as many communities as we can. We are out in areas that may be traditionally more Republican, but we are interested in connecting with as many voters as possible. Offices are about giving members of the community the tools they need and the information they need to make a decision on November 4th."
* * *
Chase City, 80 miles southwest of Richmond, is where the Obama campaign decided to concentrate its forces for the Southside battle. It is a town of 2,457 people, according to Census Bureau figures, and is 54 percent white and 45 percent black. Those demographics have not put a dent in the GOP hold on the region, but Obama volunteers are hoping that a surge in black voter turnout will help this time. Not to mention some surprises. Former longtime mayor A. Duke Reid, whom volunteers had counted as a McCain supporter, recently indicated he was backing the senator from Illinois instead. Looking back on his 10 years as mayor, Reid linked his service to what he believes Obama is trying to do through his candidacy. "I guess the biggest thing I've always wanted in Chase City is to make sure we had no racial divides," said Reid, who is white. "There's not a single black person in town who could say I'm pro-white."
Chase City sees itself as an ideal retirement community: simple but affordable, with Main Street all spruced up, courtesy of a state grant and a $1.2 million renovation. The downtown streets are freshly paved, the concrete sidewalks redone to look like painted brick, the new street lights are fastened with flapping banners that read: "A city for all seasons." Amid the modern polish is the gritty country charm: Mom-and-pop general stores where you can get gas and fried chicken. A pawnshop that advertises loans without credit checks and cash in 15 minutes. The hot debate in town is whether to back or derail a planned ethanol plant in the county. And the hot item at the Main Street Cafe is the pulled-pork sandwich.
Finch Parker remembers when Chase City had three car dealerships, a shirt factory, a shoe factory, a soft-drink bottling factory, a department store. Of course, Finch Parker is 92. "Years ago, you'd ride the street to find a place to park," he said. "People would come from other counties to shop. Every Saturday. You don't see that no more."
Things changed, and Parker bought a farm four miles outside of town, but he still comes into town. Every morning at 7, you can find him at the Main Street Cafe eating breakfast in his jeans and boots. That's been his ritual since his wife died in spring of 2007. Breakfast in town, life on the farm. And he still trail-rides horses.
"I don't get tied up in politics," Parker said. "I leave that to the other man. That way I won't make a mistake." But that doesn't stop the people in politics from coming to see him.
Obama volunteers have been to his farm on multiple occasions, trying to lock down this one vote. Parker, whom everyone in town seems to know, might bring others with him, the reasoning goes. The volunteers usually catch him out in his yard, sometimes playing with his dogs or horses. "They tell me I've gotten too old to be fooling around with horses," Parker recalled. They also tell him "how the United States is in terrible shape," courtesy of the Bush administration, he said.
Parker set up a ring in his yard so local kids could be taken around for a loop on one of his steeds, just like at a carnival. One day Obama volunteers showed up with their children to ride Parker's horse. You've got to give them credit for initiative, Parker said. But he's not sure about voting Obama, or voting at all. "I've just got to study it out. Figure it out," he said.
While Finch Parker was being worked on, Obama volunteers were also paying visits to William Thomas, who has one dental practice in town and another nearby. The first visit was about a month ago. He wasn't home; they talked to his wife. The second time was a couple of weeks ago. Thomas was out cutting his grass. He told the Obama volunteer then that he was undecided. "I think what I'd like to see is a little bit of both of them," Thomas said, referring to Obama and McCain. Of course, a split vote is not possible. Joe the Plumber and concerns about taxes going up in an Obama administration has Thomas leaning toward McCain.
The Obama volunteers -- as many as 100 work out of Chase City -- are not easily discouraged. Some put in eight to 10 hours a day. Some make 600 to 800 calls a day. Some wonder how they even came to be there. Madolyn Hayne had been retired for 12 years when she got a cold call from Obama field organizer Steve Spencer in August asking for her help staffing the office.
"What do you need me to do?" Hayne replied.
"Come up to the office," Spencer said, "and we'll let you know."
What she didn't want to do, she told him, was canvass neighborhoods, or work phone banks. But she used to be a secretary, and Spencer said that was exactly what the campaign needed: someone to log into a computer the record of voters reached by phone and whether they are for or against Obama or are undecided. That she could do, Hayne said. "I've never been involved in a campaign before. Never." She figures Spencer must have found her name on some Democratic list. "I never meant to work this hard," Hayne said, but the work somehow became infectious. "It's the best job I've ever had and the hardest I've ever worked for the least amount of money." Which is to say no money at all.
Some Chase City residents consider their participation a calling. "How did we get involved? We basically obeyed the spirit," said Jean Goode. "When the Lord says move, you move."
And move is something her husband does well, all over town, but slowly, deliberately. When the Rev. James Goode of Silone Baptist Church comes calling, folks listen.
* * *
Goode cruised past the Tastee Freeze, turned on Washington Street and pulled his silver '95 Bonneville to the curb. He left the motor running. Goode is 82 with curly white hair combed back. He has been a Democrat all his life, always remembering what his mother told him when he was a boy, after the family had suffered through the Great Depression: Never vote Republican because it will get you in trouble. "She was pretty much right," he said.
Curtis L. Jones, 69, was mixing paint on his porch when he saw Goode's car pull up. He came to the street to chat.
"I know you to be a Democrat," the preacher began, holding his lists of voters.
"I'm a Democrat," Jones replied, "but I told you I don't vote for nobody."
"You going to vote this year?" Goode continued.
"I'm too old now," Jones said. "I'll put it to you this way: I came up the hard way." And Jones started into his rap about the hard way, the odds growing up, the segregation, the lack of opportunity, etc.
Goode listened for a bit, patient, but finally cut him off. "Let's get back to Obama." Goode knew Jones, knew he was stubborn. Jones cut grass down at the church. Goode appealed to Jones's sense of history, and pleaded a better life for future generations.
"I know what you're saying, Rev. But I don't vote. My wife vote, but I don't. I ain't giving you no short answer."
Finally, Goode conceded. "Okay." He turned to leave and opened the door to his running Bonneville. One final thought, Goode had. "Will you say a prayer for him?" he called out to Jones.
Jones promised to pray for Obama, and mentioned again that his wife and sister-in-law would be voting for Obama, and then went back on his porch to stir paint. "No hard feelings," he shouted to Goode. "I hope y'all win."
Goode would make several more stops, hearing from a woman wearing a tattered robe who said she'd "probably" vote for Obama, and hearing from a man who desperately wanted Obama yard signs that were in short supply. He stopped to see Marvin Hatcher, the local fire chief who has a medical transport business and promised to provide rides to the polls. But as he was cruising back to the office, he kept thinking about Curtis L. Jones.
"He's a good guy," Goode said. "I thought he always voted. I can't figure out why he doesn't."
The preacher was thinking that maybe he'd make one more run at Curtis L. Jones before Election Day.
Polling director Jon Cohen contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Jahi Chikwendiu -- The Washington Post; The Rev. James Goode, 82, is among many volunteers in Chase City, Va., doing their best to get out the vote for Sen. Barack Obama.
IMAGE; Photos By Jahi Chikwendiu -- The Washington Post; Volunteers Qu'Amere Brantley, right, and the Rev. James Goode go door to door in Chase City, trying to secure votes for Sen. Barack Obama. Victory in the area would be a significant feat.
IMAGE; Chase City has about 2,500 people -- 54 percent of them white and 45 percent of them black. Despite the demographics, it is GOP country.
IMAGE; "I don't get tied up in politics," says Finch Parker, 92. But Obama volunteers are courting him.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
November 1, 2008 Saturday
Suburban Edition
Making History Ahead of Time
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Garry Trudeau is putting his money (and ink) on Barack Obama. Trudeau's "Doonesbury" comic strip for next Wednesday -- already submitted and sent to newspaper editors across the country -- declares the Illinois Democrat the victor of Tuesday's presidential contest.
"If I didn't call the election, I'd have no premise for the week and be forced to write about something else. I didn't want to write about something else. This is history," Trudeau told our colleague Michael Cavna, who writes The Post's Comic Riffs blog.
Trudeau calls his prediction "rational risk assessment." "Nate Silver at Fivethirtyeight.com is now giving McCain a 3.7 percent chance of winning -- pretty comfortable odds," he said. "If Obama wins, I'm in the flow and commenting on a phenomenon. If he loses, it'll be a massive upset, and the goofy misprediction of a comic strip will be pretty much lost in the uproar." (Hmm. Last time we checked, newspaper editors aren't huge fans of "goofy mispredictions.")
Trudeau's syndicate confirmed as much yesterday. Universal Press Syndicate had already received a dozen calls and e-mails from newspaper editors requesting substitution "Doonesbury" strips, rep Kathie Kerr said.
"Some of them haven't made a decision about running them, but they do want access to them," Kerr said. "Still, that's not a huge percentage, considering the size of Garry's client list," which includes about 1,400 newspapers, this one among them.
The Washington Post plans to run the strip as scheduled.
Gun Found in Hudson Family Case
Forensic testing has confirmed that a gun recovered by Chicago police Wednesday was the weapon used to kill actress and singer Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew, the Chicago Tribune reported yesterday.
Police found the .45-caliber Sig Sauer semiautomatic pistol in the bushes of a vacant lot, one block away from where a white Chevy Suburban containing the body of Hudson's 7-year-old nephew, Julian King, was found Monday. King had been missing since last Friday, when police found Hudson's mother, Darnell Donerson, 57, and brother, Jason Hudson, 29, shot to death on Chicago's South Side.
Sources told the Tribune that unfired bullets in the gun matched the make and model of shell casings found at the crime scene. Federal officials had also traced the gun to its original owner in Michigan, who reported it stolen. Now officials are trying to figure out how it got to Chicago.
William Balfour, estranged husband of Jennifer Hudson's sister, Julia, remains in custody after being questioned. He has not been charged in the slayings.
Armani Gets More Beckham Spice
Armani just can't get enough Beckham: Hot on the heels of David Beckham's racy Armani underwear ads comes word that wife Victoria Beckham will be the spokeswoman for the fashion house's new lingerie line.
The company said Friday that Beckham will debut in the spring-summer 2009 advertising campaign for Emporio Armani women's underwear.
If the modeling gig isn't praise enough, Armani called the former "Posh Spice" of the Spice Girls a "style icon, a dynamic lady whose influence and recognition will add great excitement" to the ad campaign.
End Quote
"I think she wants to just be not pregnant anymore. . . . It's a struggle to go up and down the stairs. Going out in public is insane." -- Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, 29, on his "very pregnant" wife, singer Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, 24. Wentz told DJ Ryan Seacrest on Thursday that Simpson-Wentz is due to give birth any minute.
-- Marissa Newhall, from staff, wire and Web reports
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Toby Talbot -- Associated Press; Drawing conclusions: Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury," which is submitted in advance, declares Obama, left, the winner.
IMAGE
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
November 1, 2008 Saturday
3 papers for McCain kicked off Obama jet
BYLINE: By S.A. Miller, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. Barack Obama's campaign decided to jettison The Washington Times, the New York Post and the Dallas Morning News from the Democrat's campaign plane, insisting the expulsions were due to lack of seats and not because all three newspapers endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain for president.
The campaign said it ran out of room on Mr. Obama's Boeing 757 because more reporters and photographers from his hometown newspapers - the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times - were coming aboard, as well as reporters from black-oriented magazines Ebony and Jet and the candidate's wife, Michelle Obama, and her Secret Service bodyguards.
Other campaign staff said space was tight because TV network news celebrities were joining the trip and the HBO documentary film crew recording the final leg of his historic run for an actor Edward Norton project joined the plane Friday.
"Unfortunately, demand for seats on the plane during this final weekend has far exceeded supply, and because of logistical issues, we made the decision not to add a second plane," Obama campaign senior advisor Anita Dunn said. "This means we've had to make hard and unpleasant for all concerned decisions about limiting some news organizations and in some cases not being in a position to offer space to news organizations altogether."
The campaign said The Times reporter will be off the plane as of Sunday. Separately, the campaign also denied a request from a Times photographer who has traveled on the plane previously.
The three banished newspapers are known for their conservative editorial pages, which operate independently of news departments. According to Editor & Publisher, Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain in newspaper editorial-page endorsements by a 2-to-1 margin.
The Obama campaign, defending its decision, noted that some news outlets critical of the Illinois Democrat kept their seats on the plane, including Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. The foreign press corps, which is more interested than ever in the U.S. election, also was not allowed on the Obama plane.
Spokeswoman Linda Douglass said the changes on the plane had "absolutely nothing" to do with the organizations' coverage.
The Obama campaign said it was unable to answer The Times' questions about which news organizations would be traveling with the candidate or how many reporters and photographers from other newspapers would be aboard the plane. The only campaign staff with that information were on the plane and not readily available to comment, Obama campaign spokesman Nick Shapiro said.
About 64 reporters, photographers and members of TV news crews were traveling with Mr. Obama as of Thursday night, according to campaign.
The Obama campaign told The Times last week that a space crunch was expected in the last days of the campaign and that it was likely to bump The Times at some point, possibly as early as Oct. 27. The campaign moved back that date through this week to enable The Times to stay on the plane, but a final decision to expel the paper Sunday was communicated on Thursday and a final appeal rejected that evening.
The Times editorial page endorsed Mr. McCain over Mr. Obama on Tuesday.
Mr. Obama racked up endorsements Oct. 16 from the Sun-Times and Oct. 17 from the Tribune, with the latter endorsing a Democrat for president the first time in the paper's 161 years. Ebony magazine, which had never previously endorsed a presidential candidate, came out Oct. 9 for Mr. Obama, as did sister publication Jet.
The Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon vowed that his newspaper would not be deterred from covering the Obama campaign "fairly and fully" for the final days of the race. He said reporters would fly commercial jets and drive as needed instead.
"I hope the candidate that promises to unite America isn't using a litmus test to determine who gets to cover his campaign," he said. "This feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars covering Senator Obama's campaign, traveling on his plane and taking our turn in the reporter's pool, only to have our seat given away to someone else in the last days of the campaign."
News organizations typically pay campaigns the cost of traveling with the candidate.
Post Editor-in-Chief Col Allan said his paper, which endorsed Mr. McCain on Oct. 8, was "happy to be on the outside looking in."
"It's what makes the New York Post special," he said. "We are not in the news business to be liked."
The Times protested the decision, noting that it has one of the top 20 most-trafficked newspaper Web sites in the country, distributes its print edition in the key battleground state of Virginia and has had its stories repeatedly cited by Mr. Obama and other Democrats throughout the campaign, including McCain adviser Phil Gramm's comment about Americans being "whiners" and the nation being in "a mental recession."
But the Obama campaign would not reverse its decision, instead offering space on the plane with Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Bob Mong Jr., editor of the Dallas Morning News, said his paper was "informed last week there wouldn't be room."
"We protested, we continue to protest. We believe that a paper of our size and stature ought to be on the plane. We noticed that they allowed some friendlier media on the plane," Mr. Mong said, though he added that he could not prove the Obama campaign acted in reprisal for his paper's McCain endorsement, which came Oct. 18.
The McCain campaign blasted the decision to selectively exclude members of the press.
"The least-transparent and the least-vetted candidate in history is now the least accessible - not surprising," McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said.
The Obama campaign said providing a second plane would limit the number of rallies it could hold. The McCain team has added a second plane to carry extra reporters who could not fit on "Straight Talk Air" in the campaign's final days. Both President Bush and Democrat John Kerry provided second planes in 2004.
The McCain campaign also has been criticized for barring unsympathetic members of the media from its plane, including two prominent liberal columnists - Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and Joe Klein of Time, who told Politico last week that he had been blocked from both the McCain plane and that of the vice-presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Other news outlets, including the blog site Think Progress and The Washington Post, reported that a top McCain adviser threatened to oust Newsweek magazine's reporter from the campaign plane because of an unflattering story.
Mr. Bounds said those situations are not comparable.
"Antagonistic opinion columnists are nothing like the hard-working reporters that regularly cover our campaign," the McCain spokesman said. "It's an apples and oranges comparison."
* Christina Bellantoni, traveling with the Obama campaign, and Tom Ramstack contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
November 1, 2008 Saturday
Citizen-of-the-world speech cost Obama tour $700,000
BYLINE: By Jerry Seper, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama paid a German company nearly $700,000 for staging, sound and lighting services at the time that he delivered a speech this past summer in Berlin and declared himself a "citizen" of both the U.S. and the world.
Billed as a highlight of Mr. Obama's July trip to Europe, the speech - delivered before hundreds of thousands of people in front of the historic Victory Column in Tiergarten - was organized by the Berlin-based company Mediapool, opening much like a rock concert, with warm-up performances from the band Reamonn and reggae singer Patrice.
The German company, whose Web page says it specializes in theater and event management, is listed as a disbursement recipient on Mr. Obama's most recent campaign expenditures report, filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.
The company prominently displays pictures of the Obama speech and rally on its marketing pages and lists the event at the top of its projects page.
The company was paid $667,082 by the Obama campaign in three disbursements in July and August, according to the FEC records. The campaign also paid $9,018 to the limousine service Bero Berlin, the records show.
The disclosures come at a time of giant campaign budgets and massive spending by both Democrats and Republicans.
Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin's maverick image as a moose-hunting "hockey mom" took a hit with disclosures that the Republican National Committee had spent $75,062 at high-end department store Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis and $41,850 in St. Louis in early September on her wardrobe, along with $4,100 for makeup and hair consulting. About one-third of the Alaska governor's purchased clothes have since been returned.
At the time of the wardrobe disclosures, Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro noted that neither the campaign nor the Democratic National Committee had paid for the wardrobes of Michelle or Barack Obama.
Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said it "should come as no surprise" that the events that Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain have participated in over the past two years cost a lot of money to produce.
"But given that the executive editor of The Washington Times attacked our campaign this morning with talking points ripped from our opponent's playbook, we doubt that it will investigate the hundreds of thousands of dollars the McCain campaign spent on fair complexes, opera houses, clubs, aquariums and casinos around the country," he said.
Mr. LaBolt's comments were in response to a statement Friday by Executive Editor John Solomon after The Times was kicked off Mr. Obama's press plane in the final days of the election.
"This feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth," Mr. Solomon's statement said. "We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars covering Senator Obama's campaign, traveling on his plane, and taking our turn in the reporters' pool, only to have our seat given away to someone else in the last days of the campaign."
Also dropped were the New York Post and Dallas Morning News. All three newspapers have endorsed Mr. McCain.
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers, speaking on the Berlin expenditures, said, "Clearly, being the biggest celebrity in the world doesn't come cheap."
During the Berlin speech, Mr. Obama spoke repeatedly of the things "we" must do on terrorism, the environment and other global issues. The speech was filled with references to politics, from acknowledging American shortcomings to urging Germany to recommit to NATO success in Afghanistan.
"I speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as ... a proud citizen of the United States and a
fellow citizen of the world," he told the crowd, which had gathered not far from where the Berlin Wall once divided the city
Officials estimated that the crowd was one of the largest in Berlin's history. Estimates ranged from the campaign's guess of 200,000 to as many as 500,000 from the German Embassy in Washington.
The Obama campaign carefully crafted the event, which was helped by perfect weather, and said the footage might be seen in a political ad. Obama fans distributed a photo of the massive crowd next to a photo of a remarkably similar crowd at the 1963 March on Washington.
The reception from the Berlin crowd was as rapturous as the campaign could have hoped. During the speech, one fan held a sign reading, "Barack for Kanzler," the German word for "chancellor," and dozens of Europeans in the crowd said they could not wait to see President Bush leave office.
About 700 Berlin police officers reportedly were assigned to the event, which also needed a larger-than-usual force of U.S. Secret Service agents.
Mr. Obama received raucous applause for saying the future meant "finally bringing this war to a close" in Iraq, but the loudest cheers erupted when he talked about climate change and railed against genocide.
For hours before Mr. Obama arrived, attendees listened to live reggae, drank beer and munched on bratwurst and steak sandwiches. Many in the crowd sported black-and-white Obama T-shirts with the slogan, "I want you to stop climate change."
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
GRAPHIC: Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama speaks in front of Berlin's Victory Column on July 24, 2008, in an appearance that cost his campaign nearly $700,000, according to the Federal Election Commission. [Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Associated Press State & Local Wire
November 1, 2008 Saturday 3:17 PM GMT
McCain seeks support in Va.; Obama works the West
BYLINE: By BETH FOUHY and BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writers
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS Va.
John McCain, struggling to hold onto Republican states, asked supporters Saturday to help him keep Virginia from tipping to Barack Obama. The Democrat was moving from west to east in his own final push to Election Day.
"We need to win Virginia on the fourth of November. With your help we're going to win," said McCain, who coughed and sounded hoarse at a chilly rally in this conservative region with a large military presence.
Virginia hasn't voted for a Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, yet polls show Obama leading in the state. McCain contended Obama would seek tax increases as president, and he issued a familiar declaration contrasting himself and his foe: "He's running for redistributor in chief, I'm running for commander in chief."
McCain ally Lindsey Graham, a senator from South Carolina, accused Obama of spending more time writing his memoirs and running for president than serving in the Senate.
"He's got a new book out. 'How I Stood up to the Left,'" Graham said as he introduced McCain. "It's in the fiction section and it's a very quick read."
McCain was headed to a rally in northern Virginia before flying to New York, where he was scheduled to appear on "Saturday Night Live" with host Ben Affleck, an Obama supporter. McCain had eight states on his final three-day itinerary, which ends with a midnight rally Monday in Arizona where Obama was running television ads.
"We want to win everywhere," Obama said of his decision to air commercials in his opponent's state.
Like McCain, Obama was focusing his efforts in the campaign's final weekend almost completely on states won by President Bush in 2004, a sign of the Democrat's perceived broad support.
An Associated Press-Yahoo News poll of likely voters put Obama ahead, 51 to 43, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. But one in seven voters, 14 percent of the total said they were undecided or might yet change their minds.
Obama planned final get-out-the-vote rallies in Nevada, Colorado and Missouri for Saturday. He was to campaign in Ohio all day Sunday, including a Cleveland rally with singer Bruce Springsteen, then hit Virginia and Florida on election eve.
"We are four days away from changing the United States of America," Obama told voters Friday night in Indiana, one of about a half-dozen Republican states that remain up for grabs.
McCain's campaign argued that the Arizona senator was closing the gap in the final days and was closer than reflected in public polling. Privately, McCain's aides said he trailed Obama by 4 points nationwide in internal polling.
In Florida, another Bush state teetering between the candidates this year, McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said the Republican nominee was the only candidate who can keep taxes low, fix the economy and win the war in Iraq. Calling Obama's economic plan "phony," she promised senior citizens that McCain would protect Social Security and "not cut a single Medicare benefit."
Associated Press writer Ben Feller reported from Las Vegas. AP writer Nedra Pickler contributed from Chicago.
LOAD-DATE: November 2, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire
Copyright 2008 Associated Press
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 31, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Candidates' stances at odds on some key military issues
BYLINE: BILL SIZEMORE | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
If, as seems likely, Hampton Roads plays a bellwether role in the looming presidential election, the candidates' views on military and veterans issues may take on special importance in this heavily military community .
As voters sift through the positions staked out by Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, they will find that on many of those issues, the two are not poles apart.
The starkest differences fall into two areas: the Iraq War and enhanced benefits for veterans.
On Iraq, McCain, the Republican from Arizona, has been a consistent supporter of the war. Obama, the Democrat from Illinois, was not in the Senate when Congress gave President Bush authority to wage it in 2002, but he spoke out against it.
If elected, Obama has pledged to bring U.S. troops home at a pace of one to two combat brigades a month over 16 months. That would mean that the bulk of the troops would be removed by the summer of 2010, seven years after the war began.
Obama says he would leave a small residual force in Iraq to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions and to protect American diplomatic and civilian personnel. He says he would not build permanent bases in Iraq.
McCain doesn't give a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and says the United States must be sure to achieve victory first. He says Bush's surge of additional troops last year has brought victory closer and that Obama's withdrawal plan would endanger those gains. Obama voted against the deployment of more troops.
On veterans' benefits, Obama was an early co-sponsor of Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's new GI Bill, passed by Congress in June, which provides tax funds to pay college tuition bills for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Modeled after the post-World War II GI Bill, the Webb measure will cost an estimated $51 billion over 10 years, the largest increase in a veterans aid program in decades.
McCain opposed the Webb bill as it was moving through Congress, arguing that it was too expensive and would give troops an incentive to leave the service. When the measure was voted on in the Senate, McCain was on the campaign trail and did not vote.
Largely because of his absence on those votes, McCain was given a D on his Senate voting record by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an advocacy group. Obama got a B.
Another group, the Disabled American Veterans, gave McCain a 20 percent score on its most recent Senate voting scorecard. Obama scored 80 percent.
McCain, meanwhile, has been endorsed by 21 past national commanders of two other veterans groups, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Yet another group, Vets for Freedom, has aired TV commercials that mirror McCain's support for the surge in Iraq.
Both campaigns have set up partisan veterans groups to tout their candidates.
Lang Sias, McCain's national veterans director, cited McCain's co-authorship of the Wounded Warrior Act, the first major legislative initiative to address post-traumatic stress syndrome and traumatic brain injury.
Just as important, Sias said, is McCain's 22-year Navy career and his experience as a Vietnam War-era prisoner of war.
Veterans have a "gut-level connection" with McCain, said Sias, a fellow former naval aviator. "They realize that he's been there and done that himself, and he's stood up for the military and for winning when others haven't."
Anne Rawley, a retired Navy captain and an Obama volunteer, said it is Obama - despite his lack of military service - who has been the stronger leader on military and veterans issues, particularly health care.
"I just don't think that, when we made the transition to the all-volunteer force, we ever really paid for it on the people side," said Rawley, a nurse. "And it's become even more important now with two wars going on and the repeated deployments. Since he's been in the Senate, Sen. Obama has been very, very pro-people programs."
Both candidates have proposed boosting the troop strength of the Army and Marines - Obama by 92,000 troops and McCain by 150,000. But independent analysts say any increase in military forces will be difficult to achieve given the economic constraints facing the next president.
"It's just not in the numbers," said Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan think tank. "They just can't afford it unless they want to cancel large numbers of new programs. But they can't afford to do that because a lot of the equipment they have is wearing out.
"After eight years of continued buildups, you're looking at hard times coming for defense ."
Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, another think tank, had a similar assessment.
"We're facing a disaster on the defense budget," Wheeler said. "We have a shrinking, aging, less ready armed forces, acquired at increasing cost. We're facing a significant crisis, and neither of these characters has said a word about addressing these fundamental underlying problems."
Total annual U.S. military and veterans spending now stands at $800 billion, about as much as the combined defense spending of the rest of the world.
Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com
The Iraq war
Sen. John McCain won't set a timetable to withdraw and says the U.S. must have victory first. He says Obama's withdrawal plan would endanger gains from the troop surge.
Vets' benefits
McCain was co-author of the Wounded Warrior Act, the first major legislative initiative to address post-traumatic stress syndrome and traumatic brain injury.
Defense
Both want to reduce cost-plus contracts, which pay expenses plus a profit, although McCain wants to eliminate most such deals in favor of fixed-cost agreements. The Iraq war
Sen. Barack Obama said he will bring U.S. troops home at a pace of one to two combat brigades a month over 16 months, removing the bulk of troops by summer 2010.
Vets' benefits
Obama was an early co-sponsor of Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's new GI Bill, which provides tax funds to pay college tuition bills for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
Defense
The candidates disagree slightly on new missile defense systems. McCain backs immediate development and use, while Obama says they need more testing first. troop increase
Both candidates propose boosting the troop strength of the Army and Marines - Obama by 92,000 and McCain by 150,000.
LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 31, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Obama outpaces McCain in defense-industry donations
By Kathy Adams
The Virginian-Pilot
For more than 10 years, Republicans have been able to count on the defense industry to have their backs each election cycle.
But this year, the industry is favoring Democrat Barack Obama.
According to Federal Election Commission data collected this week by the Center for Responsive Politics, the defense sector has donated 34 percent more to the Illinois senator than to his Republican opponent for president, Arizona Sen. John McCain. Obama has received $870,165 to McCain's $647,313 , according to the center's Web site, OpenSecrets.org.
"There's been a pretty significant shift toward Democrats in the defense sectors," said Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the center, which tracks election contributions and their impact on public policy.
But on defense spending and procurement issues, little differentiates Obama and McCain, said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, a public policy think tank based in Arlington.
"When you get beyond the issue of Iraq, Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama are almost like mirror images on most military issues," Thompson said. "Obama and McCain both want to crack down on contractors, they both want to scrub the list of major weapons systems for unneeded programs, and they both are skeptical about outsourcing."
Thompson said the gap in contributions is likely a result of McCain making enemies in the defense sector by helping derail projects such as Boeing Co.'s contract to build tanker aircraft for the Air Force. The deal resulted in a scandal earlier this decade that led to criminal convictions. Ending it saved taxpayers $6 billion, McCain says.
"It appears to me that the defense industry would get more money if Sen. McCain were elected," Thompson said. "And yet the dislike for him in the industry is so widespread that they've tended to give more money to Obama anyway."
Issues tied to defense spending and contracting are vital to the economy of Hampton Roads, which is home to the nation's second-largest military population and to many companies that rely on government contracts to stay afloat. One of the largest is Northrop Grumman Newport News , which employs about 19,000 people as the sole builder of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers for the Navy.
Those jobs are safe, no matter who wins Tuesday, Thompson said.
"They will go after programs that are not firmly rooted, but they will keep their hands off of aircraft carriers and subs," he said. "Things that are done at places like Newport News are almost untouchable from a political point of view."
In TV commercials and public statements, the McCain campaign has linked Obama to U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who has advocated cutting defense spending by 25 percent.
"The potential economic impact for Virginia is huge," said Kori Schake, a senior policy adviser for the McCain campaign. "You can't possibly take a 25 percent cut in defense spending without affecting jobs in Virginia."
But the allegations are unfounded, said Ashley Etienne, a spokeswoman for Obama's Virginia campaign. He plans to increase defense spending, she said.
"The senator has always been a huge proponent of strengthening our military, which includes adequately funding our military and includes spending to support our military families, efforts and infrastructure," Etienne said.
The candidates agree on most major defense acquisition and contracting issues. Both want to make defense procurement more open and efficient, limit emergency defense appropriations and reduce cost-plus contracts, which pay contractors' expenses plus a profit and often result in a project's bill ballooning by the time it's complete.
They disagree on some of the details.
McCain has advocated eliminating most cost-plus contracts in favor of fixed-cost agreements, which pay a set price regardless of expenses.
"We have to do away with cost-plus contracts" he said during the Sept. 26 presidential debate. "We now have defense systems that the costs are completely out of control."
Obama has taken a somewhat softer approach, saying he would reduce the number of cost-plus contracts because they're "vulnerable to waste" and push for more fixed-cost and incentive-based contracts, which would reward contractors for cutting expenses and meeting performance goals.
The candidates also disagree slightly when it comes to new missile defense systems. McCain has called for their immediate development and use, while Obama has said they need more testing first.
Since 1996, two-thirds of the industry's donations have gone to Republicans, mostly because they controlled Congress, Ritsch said. But this election season, according to OpenSecrets.org, the industry is carefully hedging its bets, with 51 percent of its $20 million in political contributions going to Democrats and 49 percent to Republicans.
"The true color of the defense sector and the industry is a pretty deep shade of red," Ritsch said. "But when Democrats control the defense budget, the sector becomes more blue because it does what's necessary to secure defense contracts and otherwise get business going."
Pilot researchers Jake Hays and Maureen Watts contributed to this report.
Kathy Adams, (757) 446-2583, kathy.adams@pilotonline.com According to Federal Election Commission data collected in mid-October by the Center for Responsive Politics, the defense sector has donated 34 percent more to Sen. Barack Obama than to his Republican opponent for president, Sen. John McCain.
military contractors
the role of private forces
Obama is trying to get a handle on the role of private security contractors in Iraq while McCain has not made the issue a legislative priority.
Front section, Page 11 donations from defense industry to JOHN MCCAIN to barack obama
LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 31, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
State Police continue to investigate the source of the phony election flier that was circulated in Hampton Roads earlier this week advising Republicans to vote on Nov. 4 and Democrats to vote on Nov. 5. Contrary to the erroneous claim on the flier, Election Day remains Nov. 4, which is Tuesday.
The document, which has been distributed in Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk and Virginia Beach, purported to be an official government statement; it bore the state seal and the State Board of Elections logo.
In fact, the flier, which contained several misspellings, was not issued by state election officials.
It claimed that the General Assembly had taken emergency action to allow voting over two days because of expected massive voter turnout. No such action has been taken.
State Police said Thursday that the flier apparently is now circulating via e-mail.
"There is no indication, at this stage of the ongoing investigation, that there are multiple flyers being distributed, or that multiple sources are responsible for the creation of the fake flyer," Lt. Col. H.C. Davis, director of the State Police's Bureau of Criminal Investigation, said in a written statement.
Distribution of false information to voters is a Class 1 misdemeanor in Virginia.
- Julian Walker
elections board
home page to have updates tuesday
The State Board of Elections will offer an updated home page on Election Day to help voters navigate the Web site more quickly and highlight important voting information, the board announced.
The new home page, www.sbe.virginia.gov, will include options to check voter registration status, find polling places, view sample ballots and file complaints, according to a news release. Election results will be available through a live feed.
To preview the updated page, visit https://test.veris.sbe.virginia.gov/PublicSite/SBE%20Temp/default.asp.
predictions
sabato site: obama, warner, drake
Virginia's most prominent political pundit is forecasting a big victory Tuesday for Barack Obama.
Through his Web site, the Crystal Ball, University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato projected Thursday that the Democratic nominee will carry Virginia and 27 other states plus the District of Columbia, with 364 electoral votes. Republican John McCain is on track to carry 22 states with 174 electoral votes, Sabato said.
Locally, Sabato forecast a victory for U.S. Rep. Thelma Drake, a Republican in a tough race for re-election against Democrat Glenn Nye. He said Drake should hold on despite a Democratic tide that will put as many as 35 Democrats in seats currently held by Republicans across the country.
In the U.S. Senate race between former Govs. Mark Warner, a Democrat, and Jim Gilmore, a Republican, Sabato forecasts a Warner victory.
The Crystal Ball has earned a reputation as one of the political world's best forecasters. In 2004, its predictions for the Electoral College, governorships and every contested seat in Congress were 99 percent accurate.
Sabato, who directs U.Va.'s Center for Politics, said the site will post a final pre-election forecast on Monday.
- Dale Eisman, The Pilot
poll roundup
The poll | Marist Poll, presidential race in Virginia among likely voters.
The numbers | Obama 51 percent, McCain 47 percent
Details | Oct. 26-27 phone poll of 752 registered voters, including 671 likely voters. Margin of sampling error plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for registered voters, 4 points for likely voters.
North Carolina
dole and hagan clash on religion
RALEIGH | Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is raising religion in the campaign's final days.
In a TV ad this week, Dole questioned the Christian credentials of Democratic challenger Kay Hagan. The state senator filed a lawsuit on Thursday and is airing an ad of her own that says Dole is breaking the Bible's Ninth Commandment by bearing false witness.
Dole's ad shows clips of some members of an atheist advocacy group talking about some of their goals, such as removing "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency. It goes on to question why Hagan went to a fundraiser at the home of a man who serves as an adviser to the group. "Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. ... Took Godless money," the narrator says.
Hagan is a Presbyterian church elder who teaches Sunday school. On Thursday, Hagan's attorneys filed a lawsuit accusing Dole of defamation and libel.
another tool in the box
plumber joe hires publicity team
NASHVILLE, Tenn. | Joe the Plumber has hired a publicity team. The Press Office in Nashville will help him handle the interview and appearance requests that have poured in since he was mentioned in a presidential debate and became a household name.
Samuel J. "Joe" Wurzel-bacher, 34, of Ohio gained attention when Barack Obama told him during a campaign stop that he wanted to "spread the wealth around."
Wurzelbacher campaigned for the Republican ticket on his own bus tour around Ohio this week. He appeared with Sarah Palin on Wednesday and with John McCain on Thursday.
Despite rumors, he's not planning to release an album, said Jim Della Croce, who owns the agency, though a book is in the works.
- From Pilot and wire reports
LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2008
GRAPHIC: carolyn kaster | the associated press Saying hi in Ohio Republican presidential nominee John McCain campaigns in Tiffin, Ohio, on Thursday. He focused on economic issues amid new signs of a recession. "Ohio is hurting now, people in Ohio are having trouble staying in their homes, keeping their jobs," he said as he began a two-day bus tour of the state.
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The Washington Post
October 31, 2008 Friday
Suburban Edition
Kansas Congresswoman Isn't Capitalizing on Her (D)
BYLINE: Lyndsey Layton; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A05
Rep. Nancy Boyda wants voters in her Kansas district to know that she works hard, is moderate and worries about the middle class. What she doesn't advertise is that she's a Democrat.
Even in an election that is shaping up to be stellar for Democrats, when analysts predict the party will claim the White House and significantly expand its majorities in Congress to cement control over Washington, Boyda and more than two dozen other Democrats are trying to play down their ties to the party.
"When someone asks 'Are you a Republican or a Democrat?' I throw my arms around them," said Boyda, a centrist who voted against the $700 billion rescue plan for Wall Street.
Boyda and other Democrats who got elected on an anti-Republican wave two years ago are trying to defend those seats in conservative districts that were easily carried by President Bush in 2004. Dozens more are challenging Republican incumbents or seriously competing for open seats in GOP territory -- a sign that Democrats have made inroads.
"Anywhere that's happening, they're competitive because they're putting distance between themselves and party," said David Wasserman, House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
The word "Democrat" does not appear on Boyda's campaign literature, on her bumper stickers, or on the outsize signs farmers stick in their wheat and cornfields. In gatherings with voters, she scrupulously avoids mentioning party. Boyda frequently talks about the failings of Washington, even though she has spent the past two years working there as a member of Congress and wants voters to send her back.
She stayed home from the Democratic National Convention, saying she preferred time with family and constituents to schmoozing with party leaders. She declined the health insurance available to members of Congress, saying she would rather endure the "nightmare" of private insurance to better understand the struggles her constituents face.
And she is the only freshman Democrat in a tight House race to refuse help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which was prepared to spend more than $1 million on her race, an amount that would have nearly doubled her campaign coffers. Boyda declined to join the Frontline Democrats program, which provides fundraising and strategic help to vulnerable incumbents.
"What I wanted was to be able to make independent decisions about how I ran this campaign," said Boyda, 53, a chemist before entering politics. "What I'm fighting against is Washington's control over me, my message, the way I run."
In what has become one of her stock tales, Boyda likes to describe her first run for office in 2004. She hired Washington political consultants. They imposed their will. She tanked. It was a disaster.
She ran again in 2006, but on her own terms, with her husband as campaign manager. They bought airtime on farm radio and used a $99 software program to produce newspaper inserts about her positions on the military, the economy and other issues -- a low-tech formula she is repeating this election. Boyda surprised both parties by unseating 10-year incumbent Republican Jim Ryun.
Boyda's opponent, State Treasurer Lynn Jenkins, is hoping her background as a certified public accountant will appeal to voters in the midst of an economic crisis. Even though Republicans outnumber Democrats in her district 42 percent to 30 percent, she, too, is trying to create distance between herself and her party. "I don't have to tell you this, but Washington, D.C., has failed us," Jenkins said in an April speech. "Let's not mince words. The Democrats are failing us right now. But Republicans have also failed us in recent years."
Jenkins has the difficult task of trying to persuade voters to "fire their member of Congress twice in a row," and she doesn't appear to be making headway, Wasserman said. He recently changed his rating of the race from "tossup" to "leans Democratic."
Still, Boyda is taking no chances. At coffee last week with supporters in the relatively liberal college town of Lawrence, Boyda declined several chances to say anything supportive about Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), who is expected to generate a massive voter turnout that could help Democrats such as Boyda.
"I've stayed away from presidential politics," she demurred when an Obama supporter asked whether she prefers Obama's health-care plan to Republican John McCain's. "I just don't get into it. I stay in my lane."
In the depressed farm town of Atchison, Boyda changed into cowboy boots to walk the route of the annual Halloween parade, lined with weathered men in Caterpillar caps and middle-aged women in sweat shirts. A candidate for county commissioner rode on a tractor. Many said they would be voting Republican at the top of the ticket.
"Not Obama" is how Robert Hosier described his choice for president. Hosier, a single father of two young boys, sat on the broken concrete sidewalk along Commercial Street, across from the Salvation Army. He is 45, but with a graying beard and worried eyes, looks a decade older. He earns $21,000 a year as a security guard and has no health insurance.
He thinks he might vote for Boyda. "She hasn't been that bad," he said, even though the economic crisis has ignited his anger at Congress. "I say throw them all out and start over again and get some common people in there."
While she refused help from the DCCC, Boyda has accepted more than $50,000 in donations from political action committees controlled by Democratic House leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and Rep. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), the subject of pending ethics investigations.
"If you're sending a check back, you're sending a strong statement," Boyda said, explaining why she kept the money. "I did it because it's crazy out there. I have to raise money."
An independent arm of the DCCC also recently reserved $104,000 worth of television airtime to promote Boyda in the last days of the campaign.
That offered Boyda yet another opportunity to exert her independence. In an open letter she wrote, "If anyone who is running ads in my support is reading this letter, here's my message to you: Thanks, but no thanks. Please stay out of my race."
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October 31, 2008 Friday
Met 2 Edition
In Tightfisted Turn, Economy Contracts;
Drop in Spending Is Drag on Growth
BYLINE: Neil Irwin and Lori Montgomery; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Through recession, countless natural disasters and a major terrorist attack, there has been one constant in the U.S. economy: American consumers have bought more stuff in any given quarter than they did in the previous one.
Not anymore. Personal consumption expenditures fell at a 3.1 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the government said yesterday, the worst decline since 1980. The data show that even before the financial crisis deepened in October, American households were being walloped to a degree that has no recent precedent. Conditions, economists said, are almost certain to get worse before getting better.
"This is a major about-face in consumer spending," said Robert A. Dye, a senior economist with PNC Financial Services Group. "It's no surprise why. We've had a drop in the value of houses and stock portfolios, a very weak labor market and a tightening of credit."
Overall, the nation's gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic growth, declined at a 0.3 percent annual rate in the three months ended Sept. 30, the Commerce Department said. The economy would have shrunk even more had it not been for strong export growth and government spending, as well as a buildup in business inventories -- all factors that are poised to offer less of a boost in the future.
Analysts yesterday had been braced for even worse economic data, and the stock market rose following the announcement. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 190 points for the day, or 2.1 percent, amid some decent earnings reports and some signs of healing in the troubled credit markets.
Many analysts think the country is already in a recession -- although the panel of economists that makes such determinations has not yet ruled -- and that the economy will contract at perhaps a 3 or 4 percent annual rate in the final three months of the year.
The GDP figures gave new impetus to calls for a government stimulus package. Congressional Democrats are now considering crafting a spending proposal of around $100 billion, with the hope that -- if endorsed by President Bush and the president-elect -- the package could be passed next month and signed by the end of the year. Democrats may then consider another package in January, the third in 12 months, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said.
Publicly, White House officials have not been particularly receptive to the idea of additional spending. But their rhetoric has softened in recent weeks, and political observers said there may be room for compromise, perhaps involving trade deals with Colombia and Panama, which are high priorities for Bush but opposed by many congressional Democrats.
"The White House has some things they want, like Colombia and Panama. So I think the opportunity is there," said John J. Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable, an association of 160 of the nation's largest companies, which joined the call for additional government stimulus spending.
Yesterday's economic data became grist in the presidential campaign. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) attributed the weak growth to Bush's policies, arguing that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) would continue them. A top McCain aide said that Obama's tax policies would only exacerbate the slump.
The negative turn in consumer spending -- which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity -- shows how severely the financial crisis has affected Americans' ability to buy the goods they are used to buying. In the 2001 recession and aftermath of the terrorist attacks that year, by contrast, Americans kept spending despite millions of lost jobs.
There's one major difference now. In 2001, consumers could borrow money -- with credit cards, for example, and home equity lines of credit -- to get through bad times without necessarily curbing their overall spending. Now, credit is hard to get, which means many people cannot support standards of living artificially boosted by the now-ended lending boom. Those who suffer short-term setbacks have less ability to ride out the bad times.
The result: The freight train of American consumption has been derailed. Purchases of durable goods fell at a remarkable 14.1 percent annual pace, as Americans pulled back on their demands for automobiles, home appliances and other big-ticket items that often require credit to purchase.
Even spending on nondurable goods -- food, clothing and items expected to last less than three years -- fell 6.4 percent.
Exports proved to be a major bright spot in the report, rising at a 5.9 percent annual pace. But that growth was driven by two trends that seem to be dissipating. First, economies in the rest of the world are deteriorating rapidly, meaning foreigners will be less able to buy American goods in the months ahead. And the value of the dollar has been rising relative to other currencies in recent weeks, making U.S. exports less competitive on price.
"We're entering a global recession, so it's hard to imagine net exports giving much of a positive boost down the road," said Jay Bryson, a global economist at Wachovia.
Government spending, which grew by 5.8 percent, also kept the overall GDP number from being more negative than it was. But the growth there could be misleading. The strongest gains were in defense spending, which is highly volatile quarter-to-quarter. And state and local governments spent more money, a trend that may reverse itself as many face budget crunches in the coming year.
"The underlying data in this report is weaker than the headline number would suggest," Bryson said. "We're going to get a nasty number in the fourth quarter."
Economists testifying yesterday before Congress's Joint Economic Committee said the new GDP numbers reflect a recession that began earlier this year and is likely to last through 2009. New York University economist Nouriel Roubini predicted that it would be the nation's worst downturn since the 1930s.
"When it walks and quacks like a recession duck, it is a recession duck," Roubini told lawmakers, citing depressed economic growth, rising unemployment and grim news from nearly all sectors of the economy.
Both Roubini and Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, urged Congress to act quickly to approve a massive injection of federal funds -- at least $300 billion, Roubini said, and as much as $450 billion, according to Johnson -- to offset the contraction in economic activity.
"This fiscal stimulus should be voted on and spent as soon as possible, as delay will make the economic contraction even more severe," Roubini said in his written testimony. "A stimulus package legislated only in February or March of next year when the new Congress comes back will be too late."
LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2008
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October 31, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
Referendum on Trickle-Down
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A19
DATELINE: SHIPPENSBURG, Pa.
-- Emily Daywalt decided to go to the first political rally of her life because she wanted to cheer Sarah Palin, who was here a few days ago to inspire the faithful. Daywalt said she likes that Palin "hunts and that she believes in God and that she is a strong, independent woman."
But ask the 19-year-old from South Mountain, Pa., why she is voting against Barack Obama, and she homes right in on John McCain's closing argument. Obama, Daywalt said, "wants to spread the wealth," which she interprets as meaning that he'd "give it to people who don't do anything."
For all of the McCain campaign's relentless use of guilt-by-association techniques, the 2008 campaign is concluding on a remarkably substantive argument. It is a debate about what constitutes social fairness and whether a top-down or a bottom-up approach to economic growth will define the country's future.
Obama is often described as cautious, but he has been bold and unrelenting in his criticism of trickle-down economics and tax cuts concentrated on the wealthy. He used yesterday's negative numbers on economic growth to press his case against theories that conservatives have been touting for decades.
"The decline in our GDP didn't happen by accident," Obama said. "It is a direct result of the Bush administration's trickle-down, Wall Street-first, Main Street-last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years."
Yes, economic populism is thriving right now, and if Obama wins, his election would not simply be a non-ideological verdict against the status quo. It would be a clear repudiation of conservative economic ideas and McCain's claim that a more egalitarian approach to growth constitutes "socialism." McCain's attacks on Obama's thinking have been so forceful and direct that they require this election to be seen as a referendum that will settle a long-running philosophical argument.
Obama has presented McCain with a problem. By endorsing tax cuts for Americans earning less than $200,000 a year -- i.e., the vast majority of taxpayers -- Obama has complicated the typical Republican claim that Democrats always support raising taxes.
Obama is candid in saying that he thinks the wealthy should pay more so that most Americans can pay less. He also thinks government can help vulnerable members of the middle class and the poor secure health care and go to college.
This has complicated McCain's effort to root his argument on taxes in middle-class self-interest, since Obama already has that covered. So McCain has actually had to defend giving large tax benefits to the wealthy and to business, and engage in a wholesale argument against any sort of redistribution.
McCain regularly charges that Obama wants to be the "redistributor in chief." Speaking at the rally here at Shippensburg University, Palin was forced to say this about Obama's support for a variety of tax credits aimed at helping the poor and middle class: "He says that he is for a tax credit, which is when government takes your money in order to give it away to someone else."
That is, of course, a mighty peculiar definition of tax credits. It is also an odd argument from a ticket that itself is committed to a research-and-development tax credit for corporations.
It's true that Obama favors "refundable" tax credits to help low-income workers, including some who may pay no income taxes but do pay many other taxes. McCain has argued that Obama's refundable tax credits amount to "welfare." That, too, is a strange claim, since McCain favors refundable credits as part of his health plan. But the whole idea is to convince voters such as Emily Daywalt that Obama really is just out to help those "who don't do anything."
And that is why Obama's 30-minute advertisement on Wednesday night was targeted directly to voters such as Daywalt, or at least to those like her who are still persuadable. It was Obama's tribute to the country's working people who seek nothing more than decent incomes, health care and a chance to see their children succeed. It was less a political ad than a documentary about the value of work and the responsibilities of family life.
For years, Republicans have argued that the way to help struggling working people is to give more money to the wealthy. Obama is saying that we should cut out the middleman and help working people directly. My hunch is that Obama's argument will prevail, and that conservatives will then work overtime to try to deny the judgment that the people have rendered.
postchat@aol.com
LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By David Guttenfelder -- Associated Press; Supporters of Sarah Palin at Shippensburg University on Tuesday.
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October 31, 2008 Friday
Met 2 Edition
The Debates: No Drama but a Dramatic Effect
BYLINE: Robert G. Kaiser; Washington Post Staff Writer
"This cake looks baked," says Charlie Cook of the 2008 election. The normally cautious proprietor of the Cook Political Report, famous for its cogent and careful election analysis, is certain of the outcome: a Democratic landslide. He has lots of company among his peers.
Of course, the Charlie Cooks don't decide elections -- voters do, and they still must be heard from. So let's just say that Barack Obama has had a remarkable October. It's been quite a month -- financial collapses, Sarah Palin and Tina Fey, Joe the Plumber and more political commercials on television than we have ever seen before.
But what if none of that was as important as four 90-minute television programs seen by more Americans than any episode of "American Idol"? Here's a brash assertion: The debates did it.
Okay, okay, this is an oversimplification. Lots of things "did it." We could fill today's Post with the details. Nor is this an obvious conclusion that is widely shared. In fact, our pundits appear to have put the debates behind them, hardly mentioning them in the past fortnight. After all, there were no zingers, no blood on the floor, no egregious goofs -- nothing happened!
Well, not exactly. There is now a lot of evidence from polls and focus groups suggesting that Sen. Obama has significantly improved his standing with a great many Americans since the first debate on Sept. 26, exactly five weeks ago. Americans find Obama more empathetic, stronger, better prepared to be president and just more sympathetic a figure than they did before the debates.
Most important, Obama has moved into the lead. In early September, the race was tied. In the Washington Post-ABC News poll on Sept. 9, soon after the Republican convention, McCain had a two-point lead among likely voters, 49 to 47 percent. By the poll taken just after the second Obama-McCain debate, released Oct. 13, Obama led 53 to 43. In the three weeks since, the race has been utterly stable. Yesterday, the Post-ABC tracking poll had Obama ahead 52 to 44 percent. (The margin of error in all of these polls is plus or minus 3 percent.)
Were the debates responsible for these developments? Probably. They attracted many more Americans than any other event or aspect of the campaign. According to Nielsen, the four debates this fall attracted a total audience of 242 million (of course, many people watched all four). "The debates had a big impact," says Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, the dean of American pollsters. "Obama won all three by huge margins."
Curiously, the McCain and Obama campaigns shared a strong interest in avoiding any drama or surprises in the debates. They negotiated a 31-page "memorandum of understanding" to govern the debates that reeks of anxiety about unexpected developments. The moderators' roles are carefully spelled out, including instructions for Tom Brokaw on how to handle any unruly questioner in the town hall debate held in Nashville on Oct. 7. If a member of the audience who was allowed to ask a question departed from the text of the question Brokaw had previously chosen, "the moderator will cut off the questioner and advise the audience that such non-reviewed questions are not permitted." The candidates agreed to bring "no props, notes, charts, diagrams" into a debate, and to forswear "any challenges for further debates" and promised not to "address each other with proposed pledges." (These quotations come from a copy of the memo provided to The Post.)
The fulfillment of the shared desire for no surprises is just what disappointed the pundits looking for drama and points to be scored. But the sponsors of the debates were not disappointed.
Frank Fahrenkopf, chairman of the Republican National Committee during most of the Reagan era, is the Republican co-chairman of the Commission on Presidential Debates, which brings us these quadrennial spectacles. "We were extremely pleased with the way the debates turned out" this year, Fahrenkopf said this week. "I think they were very important."
Fahrenkopf offers an analysis of the debates that has historical roots:
"I analogize this election to 1980," he says, using a brand of English that suggests too many years spent in Washington. That year, he recalls, the country was in terrible shape and voters ached to make a change, but the candidate offering change was a former movie actor named Ronald Reagan. "The American people wondered, was this guy up to it?" All that uncertain voters wanted was reassurance that Reagan wasn't too risky a choice, Fahrenkopf says.
Reassurance was slow in coming. A week before Election Day, polls showed Reagan and President Jimmy Carter in a virtual dead heat. That was the date of their only televised debate. Before a huge audience, Reagan came off as everyone's lovable uncle. "There you go again!" he scoffed when Carter (quite accurately) described Reagan's past opposition to the Medicare program. At the end of the debate, in a closing statement, Reagan asked: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" The prime interest rate at the time was 14.5 percent; inflation was running at an unprecedented 13 percent. Almost no one in America felt "better off" than a year earlier.
With help from Iranian ayatollahs who refused to release their American hostages before the election, a landslide developed in just a few days. Reagan trounced Carter by nearly 10 percentage points. The debate made the big difference, Fahrenkopf says (and many scholars agree). "The country was reassured."
And this year has been similar, though less sudden. "I think it took Obama three debates for people to see how calm he was, how composed he was, that you couldn't get to this guy," says Fahrenkopf. "He was very well organized. By the time that final debate was over, I think he satisfied the qualms of the American people."
"Then," he adds, "when the economy went into the ditch, McCain had a really tough battle."
Another student of elections who has long been comparing this race to 1980 is Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who, with Republican Neil Newhouse, conducts the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll. In an interview last spring, Hart said the country was aching to make a change of party in the White House. Obama, like Reagan, was an agent of change whom the country would embrace if he could reassure voters that he was up to the job, that it wasn't too risky to elect him, Hart thought.
"But Barack Obama faced a special problem," Hart said this week. Obama is "the least credentialed" challenger for the presidency in the modern era. At the same time, expectations for his debate performance, "because of his rhetorical skills, were much higher" than for challengers in the recent past.
Obama rose to the occasion, Hart said. "In the debates, his ability to crystallize issues and present them in a cool, intellectual and reassuring way provided an important contrast to John McCain, because McCain showed such an unsteady and erratic pattern going into the first debate over the economic situation." Hart was referring to McCain's brief "suspension" of his campaign, suggested postponement of the first debate, then about-face. That first debate "was a chance for Barack Obama not only to show his skills, but also to contrast himself with the more mature but less steady John McCain," Hart said.
Looking back just weeks later, the talking heads who passed instant judgments on the presidential debates don't look too wise. From the first ("McCain won the debate," said William Kristol of the Weekly Standard) to the last ("This debate went to John McCain," said Andrea Mitchell of NBC), most of the commentary seemed out of sync with the more scientific evidence.
Those with the best seats for the debates were the moderators. Bob Schieffer of CBS, who moderated the final one, says of Obama, "I think he won on demeanor."
"The vote for a president is different," Schieffer observes. "People vote for the person they feel most comfortable with, especially in a crisis." In Obama, he speculates, "people saw somebody who seemed very composed, very sure of himself, and I think they liked that."
Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2008
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IMAGE; Oct. 28, 1980, Associated Press Photo; The 1980 race went from dead heat to landslide after the Carter-Reagan debate.
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October 31, 2008 Friday
Suburban Edition
In Final Stretch, McCain to Pour Money Into TV Ads
BYLINE: Matthew Mosk; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
Sen. John McCain and the Republican National Committee will unleash a barrage of spending on television advertising that will allow him to keep pace with Sen. Barack Obama's ad blitz during the campaign's final days, but the expenditures will impact McCain's get-out-the-vote efforts, according to Republican strategists.
McCain has faced a severe spending imbalance during most of the fall, but the Republican nominee squirreled away enough funds to pay for a raft of television ads in critical battleground states over the next four days, said Evan Tracey, a political analyst who monitors television spending.
The decision to finance a final advertising push is forcing McCain to curtail spending on Election Day ground forces to help usher his supporters to the polls, according to Republican consultants familiar with McCain's strategy.
The vaunted, 72-hour plan that President Bush used to mobilize voters in 2000 and 2004 has been scaled back for McCain. He has spent half as much as Obama on staffing and has opened far fewer field offices. This week, a number of veteran GOP operatives who orchestrate door-to-door efforts to get voters to the polls were told they should not expect to receive plane tickets, rental cars or hotel rooms from the campaign.
"The desire for parity on television comes at the expense of investment in paid boots on the ground," said one top Republican strategist who has been privy to McCain's plans. "The folks who will oversee the volunteer operation have been told to get out into the field on their own nickel."
Obama has maintained a substantial financial advantage during the general election campaign, forcing McCain to make tough decisions when locking down a final spending plan about two weeks ago.
Scott Reed, an informal McCain adviser who in 1996 ran then-Sen. Robert J. Dole's presidential bid, said the campaign made the right call by dedicating more money to its media effort. Ads are the most efficient way to persuade undecided voters, and possibly convince some who are only tepidly backing Obama, he said.
"Obama still has not closed the deal," Reed said. "He's still polling under 50 [percent] in most of these battleground states. Don't forget, a lot of people make these decisions late."
Tracey said everything McCain and the RNC are doing is "basically aimed squarely at 'undecideds' and 'lean Obamas.' They've got to bring 'soft Obamas' over their way. TV is the best place to do that."
McCain also is being aided in the campaign's final weekend by several conservative groups, which are airing ads supporting him in key media markets.
Left-leaning groups are also on the air. MoveOn.org announced yesterday it has begun airing ads backing Obama in Arizona.
RNC officials said the party would be picking up the slack for a portion of the Election Day field effort, but it would not be running the entire operation as it did in 2004. The RNC will pay per diems and travel costs for 750 volunteers who fanned out to battleground states yesterday.
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October 31, 2008 Friday
Met 2 Edition
God, Country and McCain;
At Liberty University, Republican Students Campaign Hard, Fearing a New Era of Liberal Activism if Obama Prevails
BYLINE: Anne Hull; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Claire Ayendi is dealing with the fading kick of two double shots of espresso. It's the eve of homecoming weekend at Liberty University, and Ayendi, the president of the college Republican club, is trying to rig up a parade float in support of Sen. John McCain. She whips around Lynchburg in her Infiniti SUV, a pink iPod shuffling a mix of indie tunes as she mobilizes her fellow soldiers via cellphone: "If you happen to see a big 'Virginia is McCain Country' sign, could you, perchance, ask to, like, borrow it a few hours?"
Ayendi spots the perfect sign in front of an office building at a busy intersection half a mile from campus and turns into the parking lot. Wearing a faux-alligator headband and pouring on the charm, the pre-law senior talks her way past two secretaries and gains permission from a third to borrow the sign before calling a friend who has a pickup truck. Inside of 12 minutes, the job is done.
To be a college Republican in the face of Obama Nation takes a measure of fortitude. For Ayendi, it also requires tons of prayer and caffeine. McCain's poll numbers are sliding. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is a bottomless pit of money and energy. Even the hay bales on the rolling hills of once solidly GOP Lynchburg are painted red, white and blue with the name "Obama." And at Liberty University, founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1971, the first student Democratic club has sprung up.
For eight years, Liberty students have had one of their own in the White House with George W. Bush: a conservative Christian who has spoken about his conversion experience and funded abstinence-only sex education, appointed two antiabortion Supreme Court justices and supported a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. A pipeline of jobs stretched from evangelical colleges such as Liberty to the executive branch.
Now a new dawn threatens, and young activists such as Ayendi are fighting hard to the final hour, in part to prepare for the new phase of activism they foresee in the event of an Obama victory.
"It's the same impulse that Democrats have, the same passion," Ayendi says. "Aside from moral issues -- homosexuality and abortion -- I advocate small government."
Her friend Meghan Allen is more direct. "If Obama wins, I'm gonna want someone to get in there and reverse it ASAP," she says.
Obama has energized the youth vote, but he also has provoked a counter-movement. An astonishing 80 percent of Liberty's 11,400 residential students are registered, and most are Republicans. With polls showing Virginia on the verge of going Democratic, Liberty has canceled classes on Election Day and will provide buses to the polls. The school has also encouraged out-of-state students to switch their registration to Virginia.
Besides taking a full load of classes, Ayendi has been putting in 40-hour weeks on behalf of McCain. She makes phone calls, canvasses, operates a database of student volunteers, uses Facebook as her bully pulpit and will talk to anyone about how she thinks that Obama's promise to redistribute wealth is an affront to the Constitution. The campaign has galvanized her friends and served as an excellent primer on what lies ahead in their adult lives.
Ayendi and Allen playfully dog one of their Liberty friends for wanting to go into the seminary.
"If you want to get anything changed around here, you have to go through the courts," Ayendi says. "You gotta be a lawyer."
Totally, Allen agrees. "My goal is not to make laws Christian but to make government as small as possible so you can be as biblically Christian as you so choose," she says.
Both plan on spring internships abroad and then law school. But an Obama victory would not send these them into the wilderness. To the contrary, the fight would begin anew.
New Generation of Evangelicals
For now, the fight for McCain is still on.
On the cold and bleak Friday of homecoming weekend, Liberty holds a 10 a.m. church service for students in the 10,000-seat basketball arena. Convocation is mandatory three times a week, and this morning's service features a parade of sleepy students lugging laptops and coffee mugs. They wear skinny jeans and hipster high-tops and Ugg boots, but Liberty operates in a parallel universe from other colleges. Alcohol and sex are prohibited. Students caught watching R-rated movies are brought before a court of their peers. Bulletin boards around campus advertise "Pre-Marital Workshops" and the bookstore sells T-shirts that say "I [Heart] Christian Boys." An ad flashes on the screen at morning convocation for a workshop aimed at "Beginning the Process of Lust-Free Living."
Liberty's founder died last year, but a red basketball jersey with the name "Falwell" hangs front and center in the arena. The ghost of the fiery minister is everywhere, most prominently in his 46-year-old son, Jerry Jr., who now serves as the university's chancellor and carries out his father's vision of blending faith and politics. While the younger Falwell has not publicly endorsed a presidential candidate, he reminds students of the importance of their vote. "So much is at stake," he says from the stage. He announces that the Obama campaign has been in touch with Liberty about a possible appearance and he urges courtesy. "If they come, I hope you show them respect and don't shout them down like they do our folks," he says.
McCain was not the first choice for many at Liberty, owing in part to his strained history with the Christian right. While campaigning against Bush in the 2000 primaries, McCain accused the elder Falwell of being an "agent of intolerance" along with Pat Robertson and said both preachers were pulling the GOP toward extremism. But when McCain began gearing up in 2006 for another run, he accepted Falwell's invitation to deliver Liberty's graduation speech.
Claire Ayendi supported former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the Republican primaries but is now fully behind McCain. For the Nigerian who grew up in lefty Silver Spring, her spiritual journey began when she was 12 and went on a church mission trip. After graduating from James Hubert Blake High School in 2005 she decided on Liberty, and as a freshman in this politically conservative environment her ideals took shape. In addition to opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, she is against social welfare programs and overtaxation by the government.
In any other campaign, Ayendi's views would be in synch with those of most Liberty students, but in a year when the nation has its first black presidential nominee -- a candidate with an African father -- Ayendi is taking enormous heat. Black students make up 9 percent of Liberty's population, and many are putting aside their convictions on abortion to vote for Obama. And there is Ayendi sitting behind the "Vote for McCain" table. She has been accused of racial betrayal.
In the fall, she attended an Obama rally to see what the Democrat was all about. "It's amazing and historical," she says of his candidacy. "I would be so excited if he were a conservative. But we're looking at the appointment of two, maybe three Supreme Court justices."
Rumors fly around campus that Ayendi is a plant for the Obama campaign. The pressure comes from all sides, and her face is showing the strain. Her friend Allen gives her daily pep talks and says the campaign is God's way of making her dig deep. "No one works harder for McCain than Claire," Allen says.
The two friends balance each other out: Ayendi is quiet, judicious and guarded, while Allen is a smoking pistol who says things like "God is sovereign, man is fallen, I'm not gonna be perfect, get over it!" As part of a new generation of young evangelicals, Allen rejects the impersonal mega-churches of her youth in favor of mission work and a connection with those she is helping. They both gulp chai tea, eat vegan and listen to Vampire Weekend like other college students, and their career agendas are just as sharply focused as those of their Democratic counterparts. Both are hesitant to criticize Bush but share disappointment that the size of government has swelled under his watch. Neither support Washington's $700 billion bailout of Wall Street and believe that churches, synagogues and mosques -- and not the federal government -- should provide help to the needy.
Ayendi in particular believes that welfare programs promoted by Democrats hold back African Americans. "You go out there in this country and you work hard and you can make it," says Ayendi, the daughter of a diplomat and a nurse. "You can have your white picket fence." At the same time, she often finds herself explaining the complications of race to her white Republican friends.
After convocation, Ayendi and Allen walk to their 11 a.m. government class and unpack their books. "Did anyone watch 'The Office' last night?" a student asks. "It was SO good."
"Has anyone watched the British version?" Allen asks. "It's way more ha-larious and way more out of bounds."
"Hey, Meghan?" a student says.
"Yeah, babe?" Allen says. Just then, Tom Metallo, an associate professor at Liberty's Helms School of Government, calls the class to order. He opens with a prayer: "Father, we thank you for the rich heritage you've given us. As we approach this election season, we pray that you give us the wisdom as we choose the next representatives of our government, some for four years, some for two years. We pray that they serve the general interests and not the special interests."
Metallo says he has a treat for the culturally deprived. A recent "Saturday Night Live" clip featuring Sarah Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee, as a guest, with cast member Amy Poehler filling in on a caribou-rap number when the Alaska governor demurs.
How you feel, Eskimo?
Ice cold!
All the mavericks in the house put your hands up!
Students laugh; some wave their hands.
When I say Obama
You say Ayers
"I love that part," says Allen.
Metallo takes the class through Britain's government structure, at one point explaining how voting rights were gradually widened, and not always for good. "The expansion of the electoral franchise led to the growth of the welfare state," the professor says. "People are able to vote money out of your pocket and into their own." Before dismissing the class, Metallo invites everyone to his house over homecoming weekend for coffee and dessert.
Ayendi and Allen swing by the dean's office at the Helms school. George E. Buzzy welcomes them and they sit in wingback chairs. Buzzy says he sees Liberty students more engaged in presidential politics than ever before, and he predicts their activism will not end after the election. "Health care, the economy, the appointment of Supreme Court justices, right to life -- these issues don't change on November 4," he says.
Outside the dean's office, Allen paraphrases one her favorite quotes by Tolstoy: "Without knowing my purpose, life is impossible."
Ayendi signs up two students for the final weekend of McCain canvassing in Virginia Beach. "It will be amazing," she promises her new recruits.
'God Is More Important Than This'
Late Friday afternoon, Ayendi makes her final stop at Starbucks for a grande green tea. She takes a table by the window and works her cellphone. While the campaign is a full-time job, she has no desire for a political career. "I'd turn into a shrewd person," she says. "If you don't continually check yourself, it's easy to fall into. I've seen a pro-life candidate change. As they gain momentum, they lose values and answer to money interests."
Not all of Ayendi's friends at Liberty are in political lockstep, made evident by the arrival of Ray Woolson, a biology major who pulls up a chair. Woolson is ripe for ribbing: His Razor scooter is in the back seat of his Volvo, which bears an Obama bumper sticker. And not just any scooter.
"A scooter with a cup holder!" Ayendi teases. "When you want to come over to the real world, you can come over to my side. How can you be a liberal?"
Woolson is calm. "I think being a liberal is the most compassionate thing you can do," he says. "Jesus was a pacifist who chose to spend his time with the poor people. They weren't Big Oil, they were prostitutes."
Ayendi shakes her head in pity. Woolson gives it back. "There are a lot of kids at school who are blindly conservative," he says.
"Americans have gotten too soft and expect too much," Ayendi says.
"Like affordable health care?" Woolson asks. "The conservatives want to have tax cuts for Big Oil CEOs."
They could debate for hours, and they often do, but Woolson has to take off. When he leaves, Ayendi says: "Ray is so random. I'm not. I do as I'm told. I'm really proper. Liberals are very indie, very emo, just very fun. When we go out, we put on button-downs and Sperrys. I think ahead. I'd rather dress like this now, because when I'm in law school this is how I'll be dressing. Liberals are like, 'Live, take a load off!' My friends at home say I have to be perfect 24 hours a day. It's just who I am."
She pauses. "I should recycle more."
Ayendi's cellphone rings. It's one of the leaders of the newly formed Democratic club on campus. Ayendi tries to pry from him how big the Obama float will be in the homecoming parade. "We don't have all the money and the flashy cool things you guys have," she tells him.
Then she makes a proposal. "The Monday night before the election, we are gonna do a day of prayer at the Helms school," she says. "It's not a Republican or a Democrat thing. It's not an Obama or McCain or whatever thing. It's just, 'Let His will be done.' Ultimately what matters is that we are all Americans. I know, Monday night we are all supposed to be phone-banking, but God is more important than this."
Inside, Ayendi is trying to prepare herself for whatever happens. She acknowledges that evangelicals have had a long golden moment in the sun. What now?
"When things don't go your way, you get on your knees and pray to God," she says.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Jahi Chikwendiu -- The Washington Post; Claire Ayendi, right, president of Liberty University's Republican club, and Grace Woodson prepare to campaign for John McCain in Lynchburg, Va.
IMAGE; Claire Ayendi, left, and Meghan Allen share a Bible verse before the start of a class at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. The two friends are conservative activists who are campaigning fiercely for Sen. John McCain. Says Allen: "If Obama wins, I'm gonna want someone to get in there and reverse it ASAP."
IMAGE; Photos By Jahi Chikwendiu -- The Washington Post; Ayendi and Grace Woodson, left, gather McCain campaign signs to use on the college Republican club's homecoming float.
IMAGE; Kendra Johnston is among the Liberty University students who are campaigning for McCain.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
October 31, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
An 'Idiot Wind';
John McCain's latest attempt to link Barack Obama to extremism
WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days Mr. McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him "a PLO spokesman"; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers -- a terrorist-turned-professor who also has been an Obama acquaintance -- was at the dinner.
For the record, Mr. Khalidi is an American born in New York who graduated from Yale a couple of years after George W. Bush. For much of his long academic career, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he and his wife became friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. In the early 1990s he worked as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in Madrid and Washington sponsored by the first Bush administration. We don't agree with a lot of what Mr. Khalidi has had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the years, and Mr. Obama has made clear that he doesn't, either. But to compare the professor to neo-Nazis -- or even to Mr. Ayers -- is a vile smear.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a member of academia, Mr. Khalidi holds complex views. In an article published this year in the Nation magazine, he scathingly denounced Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and U.S. Middle East policy but also condemned Palestinians for failing to embrace a nonviolent strategy. He said that the two-state solution favored by the Bush administration (and Mr. Obama) was "deeply flawed" but conceded there were also "flaws in the alternatives." Listening to Mr. Khalidi can be challenging -- as Mr. Obama put it in the dinner toast recorded on the 2003 tape and reported by the Times in a detailed account of the event last April, he "offers constant reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."
It's fair to question why Mr. Obama felt as comfortable as he apparently did during his Chicago days in the company of men whose views diverge sharply from what the presidential candidate espouses. Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position. To suggest, as Mr. McCain has, that there is something reprehensible about associating with Mr. Khalidi is itself condemnable -- especially in a campaign where Arab ancestry has been the subject of insults. To further argue that the Times, which obtained the tape from a source in exchange for a promise not to publicly release it, is trying to hide something is simply ludicrous, as Mr. McCain surely knows.
Which reminds us: We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that "I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over." That's good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign's increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.
LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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In a landslide, election polls keep coming;
Trackers can choose from slew of numbers
BYLINE: By David R. Sands, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
If pollsters misdiagnose the condition of the American body politic, it won't be because of a shortage of thermometers.
But while this year's unprecedented number of voter surveys all put Democrat Barack Obama in front, his lead over Republican challenger John McCain in the presidential race ranges from a blowout of 15 percentage points in one poll to a within-the-margin-of-error three points in two others.
As underdogs have done since the modern era of polling began, the McCain campaign has seized on the most promising numbers while urging supporters on Election Day to stick it to the guys with the clipboards and the "likely voter turnout" algorithms.
"The campaign is functionally tied across the battleground states," McCain pollster Bill McInturff insisted in a memo to the campaign released Wednesday, "... with our numbers IMPROVING sharply"
In another favorite poll-bashing ploy, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani channeled the ghosts of Dewey and Truman to cast doubt on challenging poll numbers. In an interview on Fox News, he recalled that exit polls on Election Day 2004 had Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry defeating President Bush by eight percentage points.
"Some of this, you've got to go on your own gut instinct," he said.
Mr. Obama's pollsters and supporters insist that the polls accurately reflect the Democrat's lead both nationally and in critical electoral states. Mr. Obama himself has sharply warned campaign aides against overconfidence because of the poll numbers. But the campaign has conceded that the race likely would tighten in the closing days.
Cherry-pickers in both campaigns have an unprecedented number of polling cherries to pick in 2008.
Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political aide and now a television commentator, has counted 728 national polls on the Obama-McCain race, including 215 so far this month.
"At this rate, there may be almost as many national polls in October of 2008 as there were during the entire year in 2004," Mr. Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
Pollster.com, a Web site devoted to tracking the opinion trackers, listed 38 new state surveys and 10 new or updated national polls charting support for Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain, compiled by institutions ranging from the venerable Gallup Organization to Virginia's Roanoke College.
Mr. Obama's favorite poll is probably the Pew Research Survey of 1,198 likely voters conducted Oct. 23 to 26, when he lead Mr. McCain by 53 percent to 38 percent. Mr. McCain and Mr. McInturff no doubt prefer the new Fox News poll of 924 likely voters that has the Republican with a deficit of 47 percent to 44 percent.
Run the varying results through the mathematical blender and the resulting poll of polls gives Mr. Obama a "rolling average" national six-point lead of 49.7 percent to 43.8 percent, according to the "Real Clear Politics" Web site.
"At the national level, the tracking surveys for the last few days do show a slight narrowing that amounts mostly to an uptick of a point or two (on average) in John McCain's support," according to Pollster.com analyst Mark Blumenthal. "Even if real, the slight trend implied by these national trackers is not steep enough to overtake Obama by Tuesday."
But the broad variation in poll results has sparked another heated debate within the polling community, with technical duels about sample adjustments, the definition of a "likely voter" and the proper weighted computation of regression lines. There's even a growing academic literature on how the exploding number of cell phones may be corrupting the old survey models that relied on reaching voters at home on their "land lines."
Mr. Obama's race has also revived a lively debate over the "Bradley effect" - the tendency of polls to understate the support for the white candidate in a race between candidates of different races. The concept dates to the 1982 California governor's race, when Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who is black, narrowly lost to a white rival despite leading in the polls.
The existence and size of the Bradley effect in the 2008 polls is another subject of hot debate, but Mr. Blumenthal said the McCain camp clearly is betting that its support will be larger than the polls suggest, while Mr. Obama's numbers on Election Day are unlikely to rise.
Mr. McInturff wrote in his memo that "I am becoming more and more convinced Sen. Obama 'gets what he gets in the tracking.' "
The explosion of polls - and the commercial interests of the media organizations that sponsor them - have even factored into the candidates' closing strategies.
Mr. Obama broadcast his 30-minute "closing argument" on the major networks Wednesday evening - six days before Election Day - in part because campaign officials concluded that press coverage from here on out would be focused on results of the latest polls.
LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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Obama spotlights economic prowess in Florida, Virginia
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama cast the choice on Election Day as between his own steady leadership and promise to restore the middle class or someone who "sat shotgun" in a car with President Bush as the Republican drove the economy into "a ditch."
Making his second appearance in as many days in this critical battleground state, Mr. Obama said with five days left all his Republican rival Sen. John McCain has to offer is "stale," "worn-out" economic philosophy.
"It's time you got a new driver and that's why I'm running for [president], to go forward and not to go backward," he said.
The crowd of 10,000 responded by chanting, "Obama, Obama," echoing the cheers he received earlier Thursday in Sarasota, Fla., another swing state where he will return to campaign before Tuesday's vote.
Mr. Obama said Mr. McCain's campaign has been entirely negative, despite releasing his own attack ad that day.
"When was the last time you saw an ad from John McCain that said what he will do? All he's doing is talking about me," the Illinois senator said.
The new Obama ad depicted Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain in the rearview mirror as a man drives his car on a highway that features road signs outlining the campaign's talking points on Mr. McCain's plan to offer tax breaks for corporations.
"Look behind you. We can't afford more of the same," a narrator says.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds called the ad a "negative attack" and said it used "doctored photographs." He also charged that, "Barack Obama would drive this sputtering economy off a cliff."
Team Obama also released a positive spot highlighting endorsements from former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and billionaire Warren Buffett and presenting Mr. Obama as "a leader who'll bring us together."
In Florida to 13,000 gathered in a baseball stadium, Mr. Obama said there is a central question in the election: "What will our next president do differently?"
It was his third Florida event in 24 hours, and he'll return to the state before voting officially begins Tuesday. The previous night, Mr. Obama met up with former President Bill Clinton for the first time on the campaign trail and drew 35,000 in Kissimmee.
Sen. Bill Nelson traveled with Mr. Obama, and told reporters on the plane he thinks a Florida victory is within reach. He said the enthusiasm he saw at the rally the night before gives him confidence in the accuracy of polls showing Mr. Obama with a lead: "It feels awfully good."
He said the unprecedented high turnout in early voting is stunning. He also drew a contrast between this year and Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry's race in 2004, when he spent almost all of his time in South Florida.
"Obama and Biden are all over the state," he said.
The night before, Mr. Clinton gave a nearly identical argument he's been making on the trail for Mr. Obama for weeks, but also defended the nominee's economic plans against Republican "socialism" attacks.
"America works from the ground up not from the top down," the former president said. "They talk about redistributing the wealth; they presided over the greatest redistribution of wealth upward since the 1920s and we all know how that ended."
Mr. Obama, in turn, offered effusive praise for the man who once suggested nominating him was a "roll of the dice."
"In case all of you forgot, this is what it's like to have a great president," he told the crowd, adding that he wished the "last eight years" would have looked more "like the Clinton years when he was in the White House."
In Virginia for the evening rally Thursday, Sen. Jim Webb mocked the McCain camp's claim that Tuesday could be an upset.
"The only way that's going to happen" is if people don't turn out. He urged voters here to stand up and be counted, noting that he waited 2 1/2 hours to vote early over the weekend.
Nielsen reported that 33.6 million viewers had watched the previous night's Obama infomercial, which cost the campaign upwards of $3 million. The full 30-minute special has received more than 930,000 hits on YouTube, where clicks only register with the site if it's watched all the way through.
On the eve of Tuesday's presidential election, Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama have agreed to one-on-one interviews with ESPN's Chris Berman via satellite from the campaign trail during halftime of Monday night's Redskins-Steelers game.
* David Elfin contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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McCain targets Obama's plans to cut spending
BYLINE: By Donald Lambro, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is taking aim at his rival party's plans to cut military spending, which Sen. Barack Obama details in a 2007 video making its way around the Web.
The October 2007 video shows the Illinois Democrat telling the Caucus for Priorities, a liberal, anti-defense spending group, that he plans to cut "tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending" from the Pentagon's budget, including the nation's fledgling missile defense program.
"I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our investments in future combat systems," Mr. Obama says in the video.
There is no mention in Mr. Obama's current campaign Web site of his earlier plans to "cut tens of billions of dollars" in defense spending. Instead, he promises "to rebuild the military" for 21st-century tasks by increasing "our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines," project U.S. sea power "by replacing aging ships" and "fully equipping our troops for the missions they face."
In Virginia, Mr. McCain, who is trailing Mr. Obama, is running a TV ad aimed at the state's large defense industry and military population that cites a call for a 25 percent cut in military spending by Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
"America's safety depends on Virginia, and Virginia's economy depends on our military," the ad says. "But what would happen if Barack Obama wins? One of Obama's top allies in Congress has already announced plans to cut our military by 25 percent. Twenty-five percent. What would that mean for your job?" the ad asks.
The Obama campaign Thursday called the McCain ad "dishonest and dishonorable," and Mr. Obama, campaigning in Sarasota, Fla., said, "I will never hesitate to do what it takes to defend this nation. From day one of this campaign, I have made clear that we will increase our ground troops and our investments in the finest fighting force in the world."
Mr. Frank told his home district's South Coast Standard Times last week that the Democratic Congress would slash defense spending by 25 percent next year.
"We don't need all these fancy new weapons," the liberal lawmaker said at an editorial board meeting with the newspaper's editors and reporters.
Virginia Sen. John W. Warner, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, on Wednesday said he was "completely shocked" by the remark.
Mr. Warner, a former secretary of the Navy, said that Mr. Frank's comments showed Mr. Obama "would be in a constant arm-wrestling contest with Democrats like Barney Frank," adding that such cuts would "weaken America" and destroy thousands of defense-related jobs in Virginia.
LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2008
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The Associated Press State & Local Wire
October 31, 2008 Friday 7:16 PM GMT
Worried yet hopeful, Virginians face historic vote
BYLINE: By BOB LEWIS, AP Political Writer
Eddie DuRant and T.J. Hillman live on the opposite edges of Virginia, 470 miles apart.
Eddie is voting for Democrat Barack Obama on Tuesday. T.J. will vote Republican, for John McCain.
Their differences are sharp and heartfelt but rooted in remarkably similar stories about the driving issue of this historic and divisive campaign the economy.
Both lost their jobs in the past month, and each believes only his candidate can mend the failing economy that brought their families hardship.
Job losses, home foreclosures, college and retirement funds devoured by a panicky stock market and a global financial crisis have focused a Virginia electorate of more than 5 million, statewide polling and reporting by The Associated Press over the past week shows.
Overall, and AP-GfK poll showed Obama slightly ahead, 49 percent to 42 percent, in the battle for Virginia's critical 13 electoral votes. The poll's margin of sampling error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.
If those results are replicated Tuesday, Obama will become the first Democrat to carry Virginia since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and the 13 electoral votes he would gain would go a long way toward his election as the first black president.
"Losing my job, I would certainly say that based on what I've heard and what I've read, Obama seems to have his economic plan in place," said DuRant, 42, of Virginia Beach. He received a month's pay as severance when a small environmental engineering firm laid him off on Sept. 29, just as global markets began a frightful free fall.
His wife, MaryAnn, still has her job as a civil engineer doing work for the military. He feels they can get by for another six months. Then what?
"Obviously, in my employment circumstance, I would hope that the election would stimulate or give the perception of an economic turnaround," DuRant said.
In McCain, DuRant sees an extension of President Bush's economic polices.
Hillman, 38, was just laid off from his job selling mobile homes, a casualty of the home mortgage and real estate industry meltdown. He lives in Wise County with his wife and their 13-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son. Prospects in sales of housing or cars are bleak. He hopes his experience with financing might help him find a banking job, but some major banks are also on the ropes. For now, he sends out resumes, he waits and he hopes.
He considers McCain the best hope for restoring America's industrial might.
"I don't think there's enough manufacturing and things that are American-made in this country," Hillman said.
The AP poll of 601 likely Virginia voters conducted Oct. 22-26 showed that 82 percent are worried about the economy. No other concern came close.
Twenty-seven percent said they were "very worried" about their family finances, and another 37 percent were "somewhat worried."
Obama is the primary beneficiary of that angst.
When asked whom they most trust to improve the economy, 53 percent of AP poll respondents chose Obama to 40 percent for McCain. When asked whom they most trust to reform the nation's system of health care coverage, 56 percent backed Obama to 36 percent for McCain.
Some, like retired Air Force Col. Terry Markle of Hampton, plan to vote a split ticket.
Markle, 65, flew combat missions during two tours of duty in Vietnam. McCain was a Navy pilot who was shot down and held a prisoner of war in Hanoi for five years. That kinship that sealed Markle's vote for McCain the moment McCain declared his candidacy, Markle said.
He considers himself strong Republican, but will vote in Virginia's Senate race for Democratic former Gov. Mark R. Warner over Republican former Gov. Jim Gilmore.
"He's a businessman who was able to pull the state out of a fairly serious financial problem," Markle said.
Money issues weigh heavy upon him now. The stock market flameout halved the value of his retirement portfolio. Plans to buy a new car for his wife of 38 years, Patricia, vanished.
"We're not starving, but this is certainly not the way we expected things to line up at this stage of life," Markle said.
The election has mobilized voters in every economic, racial and demographic group, the AP poll shows. Two weeks before the election, absentee balloting had surpassed total absentee voting from 2004 presidential election, which is Virginia's largest voter turnout to date. At registrars' offices statewide, waiting lines to vote absentee in person are commonplace.
Obama was strongest among voters who earn less than $50,000 a year, 52 percent to 35 percent for McCain. Among those earning $50,000 to $100,000, 51 percent back Obama to 47 percent for McCain. And among those who earn $100,000 or more, half prefer Obama and 41 percent for McCain.
Fifty-one percent of women surveyed are for Obama to 41 percent for McCain. Among men, 48 percent support Obama to 42 percent for McCain with two percent undecided.
Black voters are galvanized at the prospect of Obama becoming the nation's first black president and will turn out in unprecedented masses to support him. Ninety-one percent of those AP polled plan to back Obama; none planned to vote for McCain. Among whites, 42 percent will back Obama to 50 percent who plan to vote for McCain with 2 percent undecided.
Tomika Jackson, 21, of Chesterfield County, registered to vote three years ago, but will cast her first vote for Obama. She is black and "never thought in a million years" she would see a black nominee on the presidential ballot. But worries about paying her college bills if the economy falters further turned her vote, she said, not race.
"If the bank shuts down for my financial aid, what am I going to do then?" she said. "I'm nervous and I'm shocked our country is doing this bad."
It will also be Ryan Kent's first time to vote. At 26, the hair stylist for a tony Richmond salon likes Obama's proposal to require businesses to offer health insurance to workers.
"The working class, we don't have money in our pockets just to throw away on health care," said Kent, who becomes eligible for health coverage through the salon next month.
Senior Virginians will vote with equal resolve.
Fairfax County's Greenspring Village retirement community has its own voting precinct, and its per capita turnout is typically among the state's highest.
Rudy Wagner, an 85-year-old Greenspring resident, voted absentee for McCain on Tuesday, despite his misgivings that at 72, McCain is too old. What sold him, Wagner said, was McCain's 44-year-old running mate, Sarah Palin, and her executive experience Alaska's governor.
Bill Reynolds, 83, a retired Texas pastor, committed to McCain long ago, but is candid about Palin's allure.
"I'm in love with Palin," he quipped. "I'm in love with every one of her outfits."
Reynolds once took a dire view of the nation under Obama, but he softened it after a conversation with fellow Greenspring Village resident Ralph Dunham, the brother of Obama's grandfather.
"I'm at the place now where I think we're going to be all right even if Obama wins," Reynolds said.
Associated Press writers Sue Lindsey in Roanoke, Matthew Barakat in McLean and Steve Szkotak, Zinie Chen Sampson, Dena Potter and Michael Felberbaum contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire
Copyright 2008 Associated Press
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 30, 2008 Thursday
Final Edition
Obama says he'll rescue middle class
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-1
In a campaign ad aired at a cost of millions, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama last night promised a rescue plan for the middle class.
"I will not be a perfect president," Obama said. "But I can promise you this - I will always tell you what I think and where I stand."
After months of campaigning, Obama offered no new proposals in the ad. Instead, he stressed his plan to offer tax cuts to the middle class, "restore the long-term health of our economy and our middle class."
Obama said the nation's neglected problems predate President Bush, but that the current economic crisis is a "final verdict on eight years of failed policies."
The commercial blended views of Obama speaking with scenes of Americans discussing their economic and health-care troubles, and testimonials to the Democratic presidential candidate by politicians and business executives.
The program ended with a live transmission from a campaign rally in Florida.
Aides described the unusual ad as a final summation of Obama's campaign. They put the total cost at roughly $4 million, enough to show it simultaneously on CBS, NBC and Fox. It also was running on BET, Univision, MSNBC and TV One.
Earlier yesterday, campaigning in Raleigh, N.C., Obama accused Republican rival John McCain of stooping to low tactics by labeling him a socialist.
"I don't know what's next," Obama said at a rally. "By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
Obama painted a bleak picture of a McCain presidency. He said voters would get no help paying for college, would see their health benefits taxed and would watch tax relief go to the rich.
Obama also gave an interview to ABC News in which he said he "absolutely" wants Republicans in his Cabinet should he be elected. But he ducked the question of whether he'd keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon, saying only that it's important "to return to a tradition of nonpartisan national security."
Taping an appearance on last night's "Daily Show," Obama said he doesn't believe that white voters will bail on him in the privacy of the voting booth.
"They've been saying that for a while. But we're still here," Obama told host Jon Stewart.
Stewart suggested that an Obama rally scheduled for 11 p.m. was a mistake because by that time, many of Florida's older people will be asleep.
"No comment on that, Jon," Obama said. "I'm trying to win Florida.
Obama said he had to reassure one of his daughters that his commercial would not pre-empt all programming.
"I was describing this to Michelle and my daughters, and Malia, who's 10, said, 'Hold up a second. Are you saying that my programs are going to be interrupted?' I said, 'No, we didn't buy on Disney.' So she was relieved."
Biden's day: Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden pushed early voting in Florida and urged supporters to attend a training session in how to go door to door for Obama.
"We need some help spreading the faith in the next six days," Biden said in Jupiter.
With 150,000 active volunteers in the state, South Florida Obama spokesman Bobby Gravitz said that supporters are reaching thousands of voters daily, either door to door or through phone calls.
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
NOTES: CAMPAIGN 2008 BREAKING NEWS 10/29/08 9:12 PM on inRich.com
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 30, 2008 Thursday
Final Edition
McCain seeks to link rival to Palestinian
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-1
Republican John McCain tried yesterday to create controversy about his presidential rival's connections to a Palestinian scholar and compared Barack Obama to George McGovern and Jimmy Carter.
In radio interviews while campaigning in Florida, which has a large Jewish voting population, McCain accused the Los Angeles Times of bias for declining to release a video it obtained of Obama attending a 2003 going-away party in Chicago for Rashid Khalidi. Khalidi is a Palestinian-rights advocate and critic of Israel. He was leaving the University of Chicago for a job as a professor at Columbia University in New York.
At the party, which the Times wrote about last April, Obama praised Khalidi and vice versa. But Khalidi also told the Times in that story that he disagreed with Obama's pro-Israel views.
The International Republican Institute, under McCain's leadership in the 1990s, donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Palestinian research organization that Khalidi helped found.
Asked about Obama's plans to raise taxes on the wealthy and give most families a tax cut, McCain said: "I won't call him a socialist.... That's what George McGovern wanted to do. That's what Jimmy Carter did, and we're not going to do it."
McCain repeatedly suggested in his radio interviews the presence at the Khalidi party of another controversial Obama acquaintance: Bill Ayers, a former member of the anti-Vietnam War group the Weather Underground.
It wasn't immediately clear whether Ayers attended the Khalidi event, McCain adviser Mark Salter acknowledged.
McCain said in Tampa that while current economic problems will pass, threats against the nation will not - and that Obama is not up to the task of protecting the United States.
Returning to the issue of national security, his central theme before the financial crisis erupted, McCain asked rhetorically whether Obama had the wisdom and judgment to be commander in chief.
McCain last night derided Obama's half-hour TV ad as a "gauzy, feel-good commercial" paid for with broken promises.
And one of his spokesmen, Tucker Bounds, circulated an e-mail saying, "As anyone who has bought anything from an infomercial knows, the sales job is always better than the product. Buyer beware."
McCain ended his day by telling CNN's Larry King that racism will play virtually no role on Election Day because it will be trumped by the nation's economic problems.
McCain said people will vote "for the best of reasons, not the worst of reasons." He said most people will vote based on who they want to lead the country.
McCain also rejected a suggestion by talk show host Rush Limbaugh that Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama was because both men are black. Powell is a Republican and former secretary of state.
The Arizona senator said he was surprised at how controversial his vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has become. In many polls, she is disliked by as many as or more people than like her.
"I got to tell you, every time I'm around her, I'm uplifted. This is a solid, dedicated, reformer. A fine governor," McCain said.
LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2008
NOTES: BREAKING NEWS 10/29/08 9:05 PM on inRich.com CAMAPGN 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 30, 2008 Thursday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Obama uses TV air time to try to sway voters
By Jim Kuhnhenn
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON
Barack Obama spent 30 minutes and more than $4 million of prepaid television time Wednesday delivering his final introduction to the public.
The Democratic presidential nominee capped the prime-time commercial with a live address from Sunrise, Fla., with an appeal for help and for votes.
"If you'll stand with me, and fight by my side, and cast your ballot for me, then I promise you, we will not just win Florida, we will win this election. And together we will change this country and change the world," he said .
The commercial and his live remarks from a battleground in the presidential contest represented a return to the unifying themes of his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that launched him into national politics.
"In six days, we can choose hope over fear and unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo," he said. "In six days, we can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history."
The spot was a mix of prerecorded Obama and voters, plus a live appearance from the campaign trail by the candidate. He offered prescriptions for an ailing economy and a rescue plan for a middle class caught in tough times.
"I will not be a perfect president," Obama said. "But I can promise you this - I will always tell you what I think and where I stand."
Aides described the unusual ad as a final summation of Obama's campaign. They put the total cost at roughly $4 million, enough to show it simultaneously on CBS, NBC and Fox. It also ran on BET, Univision, MSNBC and TV One.
The commercial included views of Obama speaking at the 2004 and 2008 Democratic conventions and elsewhere, as well as scenes of Americans discussing their economic and health care troubles, and testimonials to him by politicians and business executives.
Obama offered no new proposals in the ad. Instead, he stressed his plan to offer tax cuts to the middle class and "restore the long-term health of our economy and our middle class."
Obama said the nation's neglected problems predate President Bush, but that the economic crisis was a "final verdict on eight years of failed policies."
The video featured footage shot by Davis Guggenheim, the director and executive producer of former Vice President Al Gore's global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."
The ad did not appear on ABC because by the time the network decided to offer the time slot to Obama, his campaign had already finalized the ad buy, according to people familiar with the discussions .
Also Wednesday, Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin accused the Los Angeles Times of protecting Obama by withholding a videotape of his attendance at a 2003 party for a Palestinian-American professor and critic of Israel.
The paper said it had written about the event in April and would not release the tape because of a promise to the source who provided it.
McCain and Palin called Rashid Khalidi a former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, a characterization Khalidi has denied .
Khalidi is a professor of Middle East Studies at Columbia University and a longtime friend of Obama's. Khalidi has publicly criticized Israel, but he and Obama have said they hold different opinions on Israeli issues.
the commercial
The commercial and his live remarks from a battleground in the presidential contest represented a return to the unifying themes of his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that launched him into national politics.
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
GRAPHIC: Obama Campaign | the associated press Sen. Barack Obama used more than $4 million of prepaid TV time to speak to voters Wednesday night. The spot included pre-recorded and live footage.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 30, 2008 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
In Ohio, Wary Eyes On Election Process;
Fears of Fraud and Blocked Votes
BYLINE: Mary Pat Flaherty; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
With Ohio still up for grabs in next week's presidential election, the conversation here has expanded from who will carry the state to how -- the nitty-gritty of registration lists, voting machines, court challenges and whether it all will play out fairly.
Tim Tatarowicz, who runs a small supermarket on Cleveland's east side, said his worry has grown as he has watched the push to add new voters and get them to cast ballots early. When actor Forest Whitaker appeared at a registration drive outside the store, the parking lot was packed.
"It was all to drive up numbers for Obama; I understand that," said Tatarowicz, 44. "But it's pushing absentee ballots that bothers me," he said, because "that makes cheating too easy."
Cheating is not easy, countered Geraldine Tallie, 61, who lives in the housing project across the street. But she does believe that people can make it too hard to vote.
Political parties and elected officials for weeks have been trading sharp accusations and litigation over voting issues here, often for political advantage. But now, among the people whose ballots are at stake, the question of whether their votes will count has become deeply personal.
During the primary, Tallie was one of those caught in long lines at a recreation center, one of 21 East Cleveland precincts ordered by a federal judge to remain open an extra 90 minutes to replenish ballot supplies. But because the order came through late, only 10 polling places reopened -- and state officials say just five additional votes were cast.
That convinced Tallie to vote early this time, not just to avoid the lines but also to make sure her ballot was in. "I wanted my say," she said.
The vitriol over voting increased this week when the Ohio Republican Party released a statewide radio ad that opens with the ticking of a clock and asks, "Could Ohio's election be stolen?" The ad will run up to 20 times a day in some markets and accuses Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner of failing to fight voting fraud.
Brunner has accused the Republicans of positioning themselves to challenge the election results if Barack Obama wins, arguing that a series of GOP-backed lawsuits are meant to suppress votes, help John McCain, and "segregate and pick off ballots if it's a close race."
In recent years, elections in Ohio have not gone smoothly. Four years ago, the weeks before the vote were filled with partisan legal battles, and Election Day was marred by long lines, too few machines in some precincts, and reports of poorly trained poll workers. After the election, amid recriminations, some charged that thousands of frustrated voters had gone home without casting ballots.
Those memories are still fresh, brought to the surface in recent weeks with Republicans and Brunner in court over a range of disputes, including how to resolve mismatched registrations for 200,000 new voters. That case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against the Republicans.
All of the fighting gets attention in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County, which has 1.1 million of Ohio's 8.2 million voters. It also has had the biggest jump in new registrations -- 123,000 since January, an increase of nearly 13 percent.
"Did I register? Three times," joked a supervisor of a demolition crew tearing down an old public housing complex on the east side.
"I signed 73 times, got a cigarette every time I put down my name," said worker Randy Kinney, bringing up one of the much-publicized local voter-registration problems being investigated by the county elections board.
His co-worker Kevin Jackson shook his head. He said he isn't happy that some bad registrations cards were submitted, but his big worry was the lawsuit that challenged new voters whose personal information did not match other state records, sometimes because of slight clerical mistakes.
"I've been thinking I need to go down to the county and make sure it all is good," said Jackson, 40, who changed his registration when he recently moved to neighboring Parma. "I know we're joking about it, but this is serious stuff, and I want to be make sure I get to vote with no trouble."
"Okay, it is serious," Kinney said, relenting, "but here is the fix" -- and he raised his thumb. "Get some of that purple ink they have in Baghdad" to mark who voted.
"Please do not start up with that ink again," Jackson begged.
Kinney, 46, is a McCain supporter who lives about 40 miles southwest of Cleveland and has a disdain for what he sees as the loose ways of city politics. "They want change up here, and I'd rather go backwards."
Jackson is an Obama backer, and "loose" is not the word he uses. "I don't want voter fraud, but I think it seems to be going the other way, where people may be kept off the voter lists when they should have been kept on."
Both men said they will vote, and both said they believe their votes will count -- a triumph of faith over skepticism that was not uncommon among nearly three dozen voters interviewed last week in Ohio's most populous county.
Across town from the demolition site, Patty Ruccella, 44, whipped around her shoulder bag and pointed to a small pink "I [Heart] Sarah Palin" button to prove her interest in the election.
"People around me are talking about whether bad registrations got through by people hired to collect them, and it looks like some did," said Ruccella, who lives on Cleveland's west side. But she believes that any tainted names are being weeded out. "I have to have faith the system works."
This election cycle, Brunner has required counties to have a plan to distribute voting machines more equitably across neighborhoods and to have extra ballots on hand. But those improvements have not eliminated court disputes.
Lawsuits over election issues have become increasingly common, said Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, adding that "Ohio is one of the worst . . . with more partisan wars."
Some lawsuits seek a concrete result -- Hasen cited Democratic efforts to knock Ralph Nader off the ballot in 2004 -- but the recent Ohio litigation, he said, along with "the talk about voter fraud and mismatching, is more for political consumption."
Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor and associate director of Ohio State University's election law center, said Ohio voters "do tend to focus on election mechanics more than [voters] elsewhere." It has reached such a pitch, he said, that "you would have to have been under a rock" not to know about it.
In 2004, the bickering centered on then-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who co-chaired the Bush campaign in Ohio. He decided that votes cast in the wrong precinct would not count, and he required a certain stock of paper for registration applications; both rules were viewed as disqualifying many urban voters. He relented on the paper stock, but not in time to avoid an outcry.
This year, it is the Democratic Brunner being criticized.
Republicans here and elsewhere around the country have also cited problems with fake registrations collected by the community-organizing group ACORN, including 80 cards signed by a 19-year-old in exchange for cigarettes. The man was already a legally registered voter but has never voted in Cleveland, according to elections board spokesman Mike West.
Kimberly Balas, 48, a yoga instructor, said she and her friends have talked about bogus voter registrations, but "I'm not worried it would become voter fraud, because how would that work? You would need someone to show up and commit a crime by posing as someone or lying about being eligible."
Balas, a registered Republican who "may not vote that way," said she does have concerns about mail-in ballots. "I would want to know those are accurate -- that the right ones count and no wrong ones get through."
Thomasine Clark, 42, a longtime voter, is hoping that all the attention on registration problems does not discourage new voters from showing up.
"That worries me," she said. "I just don't understand why it's always we Democrats made out to be doing something dishonest."
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Mary Pat Flaherty -- The Washington Post; Clarence Rodgers has been driving Cleveland voters from the Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church to an early-voting center several times a week.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 30, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
Spanish Political Ads' Multiple Translations;
Outreach Can Send a Mixed Message
BYLINE: David Montgomery; Washington Post Staff Writer
How fitting that the most Latinized presidential campaign season in history enters its final week with the Democratic candidate looking deep into our eyes and carefully pronouncing 65 words in Spanish.
"Compartimos un sueño. . . . Este es el sueño Americano."
Just two questions about Barack Obama's new television ad: What is he saying, and to whom is he saying it?
The translation is easy enough: We share a dream. . . . This is the American dream.
But what is he saying, and who gets it? Also, what was the point of buying 30 minutes on Univision last night to run a translated version of his "American Stories" infomercial that simultaneously aired on several English-language networks?
The same can be asked of Republican candidate John McCain, who has aired several commercials with his spoken English translated into Spanish.
Is this just a little bit of linguistic showing off? Most Latino registered voters don't need to be addressed in Spanish. Those born in the United States tend to speak English fluently, and those naturalized as citizens had to pass an English test. The Pew Hispanic Center reports that 84 percent of Latino voters speak English very well or pretty well.
Also: Nearly a quarter of Latino registered voters speak little or no Spanish at all. Won't Obama's and McCain's messages in Spanish be lost on them?
Maybe not. The politics of language and the language of politics are full of bank shots, meta-messages. Sometimes the language is more meaningful than the words. The language is the music, never mind the lyrics.
"It allows that one-on-one cultural touch between the Latino community and a presidential candidate who simply cannot go shake everybody's hand," says Lorena Chambers, a Latina Democratic political consultant with Chambers Lopez & Gaitán.
"When you do something in Spanish, you're trying to communicate a bigger message than the message you're ostensibly sending," says Antonio Tijerino, president of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation. "It resonates. The bigger message is, 'We care about Latinos.' "
But a candidate has to be careful. Latinos, like anybody else, don't like being talked down to. Fluent Hispanic English speakers are proud of their language mastery. They're galled by the charge hurled by some in the immigration debate that Latinos can't or won't learn English.
"They don't like to have people assume they speak Spanish, not English," says Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens.
But making that assumption is a social misstep between individuals -- like goofily breaking into Spanish every time you meet a Latino. That may not be a concern in mass advertising, Wilkes says. "The ad is addressed to everybody. . . . Why watch Univision if you don't want to see ads in Spanish?"
Complicating matters, in a single Latino family there may be, across generations, diversity in language, citizenship, even immigration status. Family members will put political information in English and Spanish to different uses. Tijerino says he gets most news and advertising from English-language sources, while still glancing at Spanish-language sources. His father and uncles speak English and are registered voters -- but their primary sources are in Spanish, secondary in English.
We've reached this point after a primary and general election cycle where Spanish has played a bigger role than ever, and the politics of language has seemed ready to explode at any moment.
You can date the new Latinized age -- with all its irony and paradox -- to the spring of 2007, when Newt Gingrich, not a candidate himself, apologized for saying that anything but English is "the language of living in a ghetto." To do penance, he went on YouTube -- and spoke for several minutes in grammatically flawless Spanish, which he studies assiduously.
There arose the first major Latino presidential primary contender and fluent Spanish speaker, Bill Richardson -- who never found a way to let Latino voters know he was Latino without coming off as too Latino. Another contender, Christopher Dodd, gave discourses in his decent Peace Corps Spanish, while Mitt Romney tried some phrases on the trail in Miami that backfired when he inadvertently quoted Fidel Castro's favorite battle cry.
Meanwhile, on the Hill, the Senate was debating whether English should be the "national" or "official" language.
Politicians have wanted to have it both ways ever since Jackie Kennedy delivered a campaign commercial in Spanish on behalf of her husband in 1960. They have wanted to reach Latinos by any means necessary -- but they have not wanted to show weakness in their allegiance to English and "American" culture.
Thus, when Obama does speak of his plan to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, he always makes clear it will include a requirement that they learn English.
But this week, he is speaking Spanish. Mano a mano, McCain hasn't matched Obama's linguistic feat. But his campaign reacted to the Spanish ad with a statement -- in English and Spanish -- from Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), who said in part: "This election is about more than beautiful words."
Obama's campaign overstated the case when it claimed Obama is "the first presidential candidate" to deliver an ad in Spanish. John Kerry did it in 2004 in an ad created by Chambers's firm.
Spanish affords one subtlety lacking in English to communicate a candidate's personal style: Kerry used the formal "su voto" in asking for "your vote," while Obama has adopted the informal "tu voto" to make the same appeal.
Speaking Spanish is good as far as it goes, say members of the target audience. But there's more to Latinos than the language of the old countries.
"Thinking you're going to reach the entire diverse Latino population by doing a Spanish-language advertisement is as naive as thinking that you're going to connect with all Latinos by saying 'Happy Cinco de Mayo' to Peruvians and Nicaraguans," Tijerino says. "But I do appreciate the effort by Senator Obama."
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
October 30, 2008 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
Obama Airs 30-Minute Spot, Releases Anti-Palin Ad
BYLINE: Peter Slevin; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A06
DATELINE: SUNRISE, Fla., Oct. 29
Eager to cement his case for the presidency in voters' minds before the campaign's frenetic final weekend, Sen. Barack Obama blitzed the television airwaves and deployed one of the Democratic Party's biggest names to deliver his message of change.
Obama's campaign spent more than $3 million to air a 30-minute infomercial on seven networks simultaneously. He appeared at one Florida rally with his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., and another with former president Bill Clinton as local news shows went live in this crucial battleground state.
The campaign also unleashed its first advertisement critical of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as Obama addressed big crowds Florida and North Carolina, where he hopes to snap a Republican run.
In a day capped with a taped interview on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," the Illinois Democrat also cautioned his supporters against overconfidence despite his lead in most polls. He told them: "Don't believe for a second this election's over."
In the 30-minute advertisement, which GOP nominee John McCain dismissed as a "gauzy, feel-good commercial," Obama aimed to etch a portrait as a candidate who understands the economic toll the nation is enduring and who would turn the page on the current administration.
He introduced voters -- a group carefully selected by his campaign that cut across lines of geography and race and discussed their struggles with mortgage payments, access to health care and fears of a losing a job.
Obama offered details about his approach to issues such as housing, taxes, the Iraq war and energy policy. Between snippets of speeches and endorsements from colleagues, he spoke of his mother, who died of cancer, and said, "We've been talking about the same problems for decades, and nothing is ever done to solve them."
The program ended with two minutes of live footage of Obama speaking to 20,000 cheering supporters in South Florida, where he hopes to stockpile votes in a state in which polls show him with a slender advantage. As the national audience tuned in, Obama said: "In six days, we can choose hope over fear and unity over division. The promise of change over the power of the status quo."
McCain was skeptical, likening Obama to an infomercial salesman.
"He's offering government-run health care," the Republican told a crowd in Riviera Beach, Fla., "an energy plan guaranteed to work without drilling . . . and an automatic wealth spreader that folds neatly and fits under any bed."
Obama scheduled his first public appearance with Clinton in the general-election campaign for a rally near Orlando timed for the 11 p.m. news. Clinton, the last Democratic presidential candidate to win Florida, backed him only after questioning his readiness during a bitter primary fight but is now campaigning on his behalf in a string of contested states.
The pair, introduced as "the 42nd president and the next president," took the stage to cheers from a crowd of 35,000. Declaring that Obama "represents the future," Clinton predicted that Obama would be a smart president "who wants to understand, and he can understand."
To demonstrate that his support is firm, Clinton gave four reasons to choose him:
He pointed to Obama's philosophy, policies, his ability to make a decision and his ability to execute that decision. Saying that Obama "represents the future" he called on the crowd to "find the people who are still teetering and wavering, and tell them why they ought to be with us."
Clinton asked the crowd to vote, and then go out and "find the people who are still teetering and wavering, and tell them why they ought to be with us."
The timing of the Obama-Clinton appearance is a tactic the campaign intends to repeat in the coming days. An aide said a central goal is to maximize face time on local news broadcasts -- and to cover as much ground as possible before he votes Tuesday in Chicago.
By the end of the day Saturday, Obama will have campaigned in eight states in four days, moving from North Carolina to Florida, then north to Virginia and west to Missouri, Iowa and Indiana. On Saturday, he plans to start in Nevada and finish in Colorado.
"It's campaign from dawn to dusk," the aide said. "We're campaigning as though we're five points down, to the very end."
The decision to bombard the airwaves on Wednesday and Thursday was grounded in the belief that, by Friday, much of the media coverage will be focused on the horse race and producing stories heavily influenced by the candidates' last-minute travels and maneuvers.
By Monday, Obama strategist David Axelrod said, it will be too late because the vast majority of voters will have chosen a candidate.
"At this stage," Obama told host Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show," "everything that needs to be said has probably been heard by a lot of voters, and what you want to do is just remind them one more time, 'Here's what I'm going to do,' not oversell, and let people make up their own minds."
McCain and the Republican National Committee made their own case, with ads that called Obama unready for the White House. One called him "risky." Another airing frequently in North Carolina shows stormy seas and asks, "What if this storm does get worse?" Perhaps most striking was a McCain spot arguing that the Democrat is not ready for the White House "yet."
The ad also mocks Obama's Internet-savvy campaign by finishing with the words "Barack Obama: untested."
Obama's newest 30-second advertisements directly target Palin after weeks of letting others question her credentials. The campaign links McCain's comments about the economy with the Alaska governor, who until last year was the mayor of a town of 6,000.
Against a gloomy backdrop, the silent ad presents McCain's own statements, including the December comment that "the issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should."
The final comment comes from a November debate among GOP rivals, when he said, "I might have to rely on a vice president that I select." The screen shifts to two words -- "His choice?" -- and a video of Palin speaking and winking.
Obama's campaign has long shied away from direct criticism of Palin. But with opinion polls showing widespread doubts about her ability to handle the duties of the Oval Office, an Obama aide said the advertisement was designed to use McCain's words to raise doubts about his own ability to deal with the economy, "and what he hopes to get out of his vice presidential candidate."
The campaign, the aide said, wants voters to ask themselves "whether they're comfortable with Sarah Palin in that role."
In Raleigh, N.C., where 28,000 people gathered on a windswept downtown common, Obama joked about McCain's attempt to label him a socialist.
"Lately, he calls me a socialist for wanting to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class," Obama said.
"I don't know -- by the end of the week he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post; Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, introduced as "the 42nd president and the next president," appeared before a crowd of 35,000 at a campaign rally near Orlando. Clinton said Obama "represents the future."
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 30, 2008 Thursday
Correction Appended
Suburban Edition
ObamaVision: An Appeal to the Masses
Barack Obama fired the final salvo in the great battle of images that is the 2008 presidential campaign last night with a half-hour, multimillion-dollar television infomercial that could be considered not the "feel-good" but rather the "feel-better" movie of the year.
Somehow both poetic and practical, spiritual and sensible, the paid political broadcast, which aired on seven major cable and broadcast networks (on Univision, it was identified as "Historias Americanas"), was a montage of montages, a series of seamlessly blended segments interweaving the stories of embattled Americans with visions of their deliverer, Guess Who.
As political filmmaking, "Barack Obama: American Stories" was an elegant combination of pictures, sounds, voices and music designed not so much to sell America on Barack Obama as to communicate a sensibility. The film conveyed feelings, not facts -- specifically, a simulation of how it would feel to live in an America with Barack Obama in the White House. The tone and texture recalled the "morning in America" campaign film made on behalf of Ronald Reagan, a work designed to give the audience a sense of security and satisfaction; things are going to be all right.
Obama was narrator of his film, but also its star, appearing in excerpts from speeches delivered before tremendous crowds (including the finale to the Democratic convention, a nearly biblical pageant), sitting or standing in a flag-bedecked office that looked comfortable and White Housey, and in campaign footage out amongst the folks, the people, the faithful, the huddled masses.
It also included brief testimonials from estimable figures -- running mate Joe Biden; Michelle Obama, the candidate's wife; Google chief executive Eric Schmidt; Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; and others.
Absent were the kinds of figures and graphics featured in some of Obama's bread-and-butter commercials: his economic plan vs. that of competitor John McCain, his health plan vs. that of McCain, and so on. And while there was some outright rhetoric ("the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression" . . . "eight years of failed policies"), most of the talk was conversational in that laid-back, not-to-worry, calmly passionate, defiantly hopeful Obaman way.
Although McCain was not seen during the half-hour, one could easily summon the contrasting image of the Republican while watching Obama. McCain has come across on television as relatively worried, whiny, fusty and falsely folksy. He brought bad news; he has come to epitomize and personify it. Obama brings you medication along with the list of symptoms; he has developed a great bedside, as well as fireside, manner.
It was the easiest thing in the world, watching the skillfully edited hodgepodge put together by his campaign, to picture Obama as president. That's one thing the film was designed to do, especially for the doubters and those scared, "undecided" voters out there.
The vignettes -- Obama called them "stories that reflect the state of our union" -- were brief and dealt with or had ties to the current global economic strife. In North Kansas City, Mo., a family of eight in which the husband and father continues working at a tire retread plant even though he should have a leg operation, because he can't afford it. In Sardinia, Ohio, would-be retirees who have to defer the "golden years" because of a home equity loan and the lack of health insurance.
Interspersed with the vignettes were Obama's personal stories of hardships overcome while growing up and of the values inculcated by the grandmother who was largely in charge of raising him. For the umpty-umpth time, he told the story of how Granny woke his 8-year-old self up at 4:30 a.m. to go over homework and how, when he grumbled about it, she'd respond with, "Well, this is no picnic for me, either, buster."
Obama also spoke again of his mother's death from cancer, and how an insurance company refused to pay for the care she needed because her illness was coldly deemed "a preexisting condition." What Obama promises to fight are a number of preexisting conditions, too. Strangely or not, one of those -- the war in Iraq -- was barely mentioned. The war being fought by those portrayed in the film is strictly on the home front, though there was a weirdly retro reference at one point to curbing "Russian aggression."
The half-hour was underscored with music in a kind of elegiac, Aaron Copland mode -- sorrow and stature. Obama seemed as heroic a figure as Henry Fonda's Tom Joad in "The Grapes of Wrath," but with more of a Jimmy Stewart personality. He has come, the film said, to show us all the way, and if we don't know it by now, and after all those millions spent to tell us, it's our fault.
There didn't have to be a big finish to the show, but there was: a live appearance by Obama, joined at the last moment by Biden, from a stadium in Florida. "America, the time for change has come," Obama boomed, and the crowd's roar grew louder with his voice. Now it seemed to be turning into a Frank Capra movie; after all, "Grapes of Wrath" did not have a happy ending, but, according to last night's multicast -- in spectacular ObamaRama -- this movie will.
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
CORRECTION-DATE: November 8, 2008
CORRECTION: · An Oct. 30 Style review of Barack Obama's 30-minute infomercial the week before the election incorrectly described an anecdote about a young Obama being awakened to go over his homework. Obama said he was awakened by his mother, not his grandmother.
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Images From Obama Campaign Via Associated Press; Scenes from "Barack Obama: American Stories" included the candidate in a setting evoking the Oval Office and meeting with a family whose lot his administration's policies would presumably improve.
IMAGE
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 30, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
Both Camps Underscore Choices
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
THE AD
Behind the fancy speeches, grand promises and TV special lies the truth: With crises at home and abroad, Barack Obama lacks the experience America needs. And it shows. His response to our economic crisis is to spend and tax our economy deeper into recession. The fact is, Barack Obama's not ready -- yet.
ANALYSIS
The most telling word in this John McCain ad is the last one: "yet."
By charging that Barack Obama is not experienced enough to lead the country -- yet -- the McCain camp is making an appeal to those who would like to see Obama in the White House one day but have qualms about his thin national résumé. The implicit suggestion is that the Navy veteran is the safe choice while the former community organizer from Chicago should be given time to become a more seasoned leader.
The commercial reprises the theme of McCain's Paris Hilton ad this summer -- which mocked Obama as a celebrity -- by showing rapid images of the senator from Illinois speaking to huge crowds, in one instance before the Greek columns erected for his Democratic convention speech. This gives way to grim images of a boarded-up house, unsold cars and a depressed-looking woman with her daughter.
The spot is also an attempt to blunt what it calls the "TV special," the unusual 30-minute Obama infomercial that aired last night.
The accusation that Obama would tax the country into a deep recession is misleading, as were previous McCain ads, because Obama proposes to increase taxes only on those earning more than $250,000, while cutting rates for 95 percent of taxpayers. Obama is pushing major spending programs, such as one to extend health insurance, but insists that his budget pays for them. The commercial uses pictures instead to help depict Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal, a standard Republican charge that has become McCain's closing argument.
What's not clear is whether the novel argument that Obama might be ready someday, but not now, will prove persuasive with wavering voters.
THE AD
Text: "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."
Wall Street Journal, 11/26/05
"The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should."
Boston Globe Political Intelligence, 12/18/07
"I might have to rely on a vice president that I select" for expertise on economic issues.
GOP Debate, 11/28/07
His choice? [Footage of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin winking]
On November 4th, You Get to Make Yours
ANALYSIS
This Barack Obama ad is a complete departure from a two-month strategy of largely ignoring John McCain's running mate.
By showing the briefest snippet of Sarah Palin winking, the commercial tries to convey that she is too frivolous to be vice president or a potential president -- all without a spoken word from a narrator. In an apparent effort to avoid a backlash over criticizing a female candidate, the ad frames the choice of the rookie Alaska governor entirely as a matter of McCain's judgment.
Since Aug. 29, when the senator from Arizona unveiled Palin as his choice, Obama (and running mate Joseph R. Biden Jr.) has carefully described her as a competent politician in an effort to avoid having the Democratic nominee run against the No. 2 candidate, who happens to be a woman. This ad is surprising because Obama is ahead in the polls in this final week and has no urgent need to make Palin the issue.
But with some polls showing that a majority of Americans regard her as unqualified to be vice president, the commercial deftly uses McCain's own words to tie his past admissions of uncertainty on the economy -- the overriding issue in this campaign -- to the choice of the increasingly controversial Palin. She is used as a visual punch line to discredit the man who chose her.
Video of this ad can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
October 30, 2008 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
He's Everywhere: Obama Wraps Small-Screen Barrage With 'Daily Show' Appearance
"This is the Obama infomercial!" Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama conceded to Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" last night of his 30-minute time buy on CBS, NBC, Fox, MSNBC, Univision, BET and TV One.
In a satellite interview that aired three hours after Obama's half-hour message to the American public, the senator told the late-night cable-show host that he hoped people would come away with the feeling that "this election is really important" and that the four struggling families profiled in the infomercial would remind them of someone they know.
"At this stage, everything that needs to be said probably has been heard by a lot of voters," Obama acknowledged.
All day long, Barack Obamavision had been on the minds of the made-for-TV navel-gazers in the small-screen firmament.
Most of them had some fun with that clip of Obama's GOP rival, John McCain, mocking the time buy:
He's measuring the drapes, and he's planning his first address to the nation, an infomercial. By the way, I will never delay the start of the World Series for an infomercial.
Fox News Channel reported that "tonight it's almost all Obama all the time -- on Fox, CBS, Univision, NBC and three other TV stations. Starting at 8 p.m., Barack Obama will star in the largest campaign buy in history -- a last-minute, 30-minute plea to undecided voters and a living testament to his campaign's deep pockets."
The Obama camp's purchase of time on the major broadcast networks -- ABC excepted -- and several cable networks, reportedly cost $3 million to $5 million.
On CNN, Jessica Yellin reported breathlessly that Obama would be "interrupting prime time for millions of Americans."
On ABC News's "Good Morning America," they trotted out clips of Elisabeth Hasselbeck discussing the time buy with sometime-ABC News-journalist Barbara Walters on Babs's Sirius satellite radio show, "Barbara Live":
Babs: He's got the money and he wants to win.
Hasselbeck: That to me is, in terms of the economy -- that is repulsive.
Just to make sure we're clear here:
1. ABC News
2. Covering the campaign strategy of a presidential candidate -- the country's historic first African American major-party presidential candidate
3. Using quotes from former "Survivor" contestant turned daytime-TV hostess
4. And, again, not to put too fine a point on it -- ABC News.
Back in the comfort of her own show, ABC's syndicated "The View," Hasselbeck toned it down a bit. "I just think at this point to spend $1 million per network on this ad seems a little excessive," she said.
"It bothers me a bit we can't ask him -- it's a 30-minute ad. . . . People I think have a lot of questions, especially now, given his spread-the-wealth conversation," Hasselbeck told the other Ladies of "The View." (Babs was noticeably missing, though it's also her show.)
Moderator Whoopi Goldberg explained, slowly, to Hasselbeck that when people contribute to Obama's campaign, "that money is not meant to be given to the person to go and give to charity. . . . That is to get out [the candidate's] word. And he's doing it. And I think you can't fault the guy. I'm pretty sure if John McCain had the opportunity and the dough, he would probably do the same thing, as most candidates would."
"But Barack broke his promise -- he said he'd take public financing," Hasselbeck whined.
"That's the point you want to make. The point that I am making is that the people gave him this money to do exactly what he's doing with it," Whoopi shot back.
"GMA" also trotted out footage of the last presidential candidate to make campaign time buys: billionaire Ross Perot in 1992, making his case by using flow charts, to which he pointed with a "voodoo stick" Perot said had been sent to him by some lady.
"It's unclear that Senator Obama will use flow charts or not," ABC News's senior national correspondent Jake Tapper told viewers at home.
Nice.
Tapper also noted that Obama was running a grave "oversaturation" risk, because his 30-minute message to voters will appear on three whole broadcast networks and a handful of cable nets, not to mention a same-day sit-down on ABC's own evening newscast and an appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."
Over at NBC's "Today" show, Chris Matthews likened the time buy to the election-eve speech John F. Kennedy delivered from Faneuil Hall in Boston 48 years ago, and said what Obama needs to do in his 30 minutes is make white men feel better.
"The toughest thing that neither candidate has really done yet, and Barack included, they haven't really gone to the American male -- white male, if you want to put it that way, brutally -- and said to them, 'Look, you've got a tough row to hoe. . . . You take pride in providing for your family and putting food on the table and maybe getting the kids into college. . . . I'm going to help you do it. I'm not going to get in the way with high taxes. . . . I'm going to be one of your helpers. I'm not going to get in your way,' " Matthews said Obama needs to say.
CBS's "The Early Show" went out and found two former White House gofers -- Dee Dee Myers and Dan Bartlett -- to debate the merits of the time buy. Myers, who was an aide to Bill Clinton, noted this is the first time a real contender for president has had the resources to make a time buy across three broadcast networks and multiple cable nets. Bartlett, a former George W. Bush aide, said Obama ran the risk of looking like he thinks he already has the job, "taking over network time like this."
During his one-on-one with Obama for the ABC evening newscast, Charlie Gibson was not joined by Hasselbeck, and he did not talk to Obama over his Skinny Glasses of Intimidation and did not ask him to explain the Bush Doctrine. Instead, Gibson asked Obama such penetrating questions as: "Finish this sentence: 'On November 5, I'm so happy I won't have to . . .' "
(Obama went with "pack.")
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Abc News; Barack Obama was seemingly everywhere yesterday with a seven-network time buy and a one-on-one chat with ABC's Charlie Gibson.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
October 30, 2008 Thursday
McCain calls Obama unqualified;
Republican returns to national security; Democrat airs infomercial
BYLINE: By Joseph Curl and Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. John McCain fiercely cast Sen. Barack Obama as unfit to be commander in chief and take on the "grave threats" that await the next president, hours before his Democratic rival addressed tens of millions nationwide in a 30-minute, prime-time infomercial.
Seeking to turn the campaign away from the economic crisis and toward national security with just six days left in the race, Mr. McCain strayed far from his standard stump speech, declaring that his rival simply has not proved himself up to the task.
"The question is whether this is a man who has what it takes to protect America from Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and other grave threats in the world. And he has given you no reason to answer in the affirmative," Mr. McCain said after a national security roundtable with top military and intelligence specialists.
Mr. Obama's 30-minute ad broke no new ground or made any new proposals, but rather touched on each of his major campaign promises: an economic rescue for middle-class families, health care reform, energy independence, a commitment to national security and an end to the war in Iraq. Each issue was punctuated by testimonials by voters about hard times in the U.S.
"What struck me most about these stories you will see tonight is not just the challenges these Americans face but also their resolve to change this country," Mr. Obama said in the introduction to the video, which concluded with two minutes of a live rally in a hockey arena in Sunrise, Fla.
At other Florida rallies, including one with running mate Joseph R. Biden Jr. and another with former President Bill Clinton in Orlando, the senator from Illinois continued his focus on the economy, the issue that has moved him ahead in polls in several battleground states.
In Raleigh, N.C., he painted a bleak picture of a McCain presidency, mocking "Joe the Plumber" as he told supporters that they would get no help paying for college, see their health benefits taxed and see tax relief go to the rich.
"So whether you are Suzy the Student, or Nancy the Nurse, or Tina the Teacher, or Carl the Construction Worker, if my opponent is elected, you will be worse off four years from now than you are today," Mr. Obama said. "Let's cut through the negative ads and the phony attacks."
Mr. McCain countered the expected thrust of the Obama ad, saying that a president is not simply an economic manager but also a national leader in charge of foreign policy - a much less predictable task for which he said Mr. Obama is not prepared.
"We're going to get through this economic crisis. But when that day arrives and the worries of financial crisis have fallen away, we will find awaiting our country all of the same great challenges and dangers that were there all along," he said.
"They mattered before the economic turmoil of the present. They will matter still when it has passed. And in a time of war, at a moment of danger for our country and the world, let it not be said of us that we lost sight of these challenges."
Mr. Obama did not comment on Mr. McCain's charges on national security, but a surrogate, retired Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, ripped the senator from Arizona.
"When the next president is tested, the American people can have John McCain's judgment of siding with George Bush and Dick Cheney on every major national security decision, or they can have the steady leadership and sound judgment of Barack Obama that has earned the support of Americans like General Colin Powell," the general said.
Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain stumped in the Sunshine State, a crucial battleground that is tilting toward the Democratic candidate.
The senator from Illinois leads in most state polls, by an average of 3.5 points, but his advantage is within the polls' margins of error.
Mr. Obama spent more than $3 million to showcase the plight of everyday Americans and outline his intentions for helping them in a spot broadcast on all but one major network, plus BET and Univision.
The McCain campaign dismissed the TV spot as a mere sales pitch.
"As anyone who has bought anything from an infomercial knows, the sales job is always better than the product," McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said. "Buyer beware."
On the stump, the Republican candidate himself mocked Mr. Obama's ad in similar terms, saying: "As with other infomercials, he's got a few things he wants to sell you: He's offering government-run health care, ... an energy plan guaranteed to work without drilling . and an automatic wealth spreader that folds neatly and fits under any bed."
The "real stories" in the Obama infomercial included Rebecca Johnston, a mother struggling to make ends meet in North Kansas City, Mo., and 72-year-old Larry Stuart, who had to mortgage his home in Sardinia, Ohio, and come out of retirement to afford medicine for his chronically ill wife.
"We have to stop just talking about health care reform and lost jobs and energy independence and finally do something about it," Mr. Obama said.
He said he would pay for his plans - expanding health care coverage, spending $15 billion a year on alternative energy projects, giving tax credits for buying fuel-efficient cars - by cutting spending, improving government efficiency and eliminating failing federal programs.
"Across the country, families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington," he said. "And one of the biggest savings we can make is to change our policy in Iraq."
The Obama ad was expected to attract record viewers as many watched television to see what may be the final game of the Phillies-Rays World Series. It was produced by Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim and includes footage from Mr. Obama's more than 20 months on the campaign trail.
Billionaire candidate H. Ross Perot in 1992 in his failed independent bid for the presidency was the last politician to use such a tactic. Mr. Obama has outspent Mr. McCain, having raised more than $600 million for his presidential bid while Mr. McCain agreed to take $84 million in public funds.
At the Milton A. Barlow Center in Foggy Bottom, Brigham Young University students spending a semester in the District at area internships gathered to watch, passed around chocolate and made election night plans.
"This is great for Barack Obama, but I don't think this is going to help his campaign. I think this is about building consensus if he does become president after this rough election," said Cecily Vincent, 20.
A couple of students cheered when Mr. Obama vowed to defend the country. During the segment about seniors facing challenges, Andrew Skabelund, 23, said: "This is depressing, the melodramatic music."
Brooke Robinson, 19, said: "The Obama-mercial was just reconfirming the same type of stuff from his campaign, but I enjoyed it."
After the Obama ad ran, Mr. McCain made a one-hour appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live" program.
Mr. McCain said earlier Wednesday that Mr. Obama talks eloquently about his record but charged that the Democrat had repeatedly made the wrong call during crises, including when he opposed a surge of 20,000 combat troops into Iraq almost two years ago, which helped reduce violence and deliver stability to the war-torn country.
"He cites as his most courageous moment in public life a speech he gave in 2002 - against a war resolution on which he had no vote, on a matter of national security for which he bore no responsibility. He hopes you will forget the votes he cast when he actually did have responsibility - his votes to prevent the strategy that is leading to victory, and to deny funding for the troops who are gaining that victory.
"And now he hopes that in the cloud of crisis at home you will forget the stakes in Iraq - the disaster and tragedy that would follow if American forces leave in retreat," he said.
Both candidates were targeting Hispanics, albeit in vastly different ways. Mr. Obama aimed a 30-minute ad on Univision as part of his prime-time advertising campaign. The buy on the country's largest Spanish-language network is a first in the history of presidential campaign.
As he did during an earlier stop in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, Mr. McCain lambasted Mr. Obama for pledging to meet with dictators and leaders of rogue nations without preconditions.
"My opponent assumes far more good will than is warranted from Kim Jong-il the tyrant of North Korea; Hugo Chavez, the leader of Venezuela who wishes to export instability to neighboring countries; and the Castro brothers, who have given Cuba 50 years' worth of socialist misery and are still at it.
"In each case, Senator Obama presents his plan for direct talks as if no one before had ever considered that. He seems unaware that mere talk has been tried many times, to no avail and that our adversaries recognize such gestures as a sign of weakness," he said.
* S.A. Miller and Emily Kimball contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
GRAPHIC: A mostly Democratic group of patrons watches Barack Obama's 30-minute campaign ad at Stetson's bar in Northwest. The nationwide infomercial reiterated the candidate's platform. [Photo by Astrid Riecken/The Washington Times]
CUTTING TO THE CHASE: Sen. Barack Obama mocks the McCain "Joe the Plumber" message in Raleigh, N.C., on Wednesday before heading to Florida for appearances with running mate Joseph R. Biden Jr. and former President Bill Clinton. [Photo by Associated Press]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
October 30, 2008 Thursday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE POLITICS; A06
Vulnerable
"If current survey trends continue, Obama will finish with less than 50 percent in the polls. Even discounting the Nader vote (some people never learn), the undecided voters could tip the race either way. How will they break?" Dick Morris writes in the Hill newspaper.
"At the beginning of this contest, Obama effectively made the case that the election was a referendum on [President] Bush's performance in office. Painting a vote for McCain as a desire for 'four more years of the same failed policies,' he made the most of Bush's dismal approval rating. Had he been able to keep the focus on Bush, he would likely have inherited most of the undecided vote.
"But as Obama surged into a more or less permanent lead in October, animated by the financial crisis, he has assumed many of the characteristics of an incumbent. Every voter asks himself one question before he or she casts a ballot: Do I want to vote for Obama? His uniqueness, charisma and assertive program have so dominated the dialogue that the election is now a referendum on Obama," Mr. Morris said.
"As Obama has oscillated, moving somewhat above or somewhat below 50 percent in all the October polls, his election likely hangs in the balance. If he falls short of 50 percent in these circumstances, a majority of the voters can be said to have rejected him. Likely a disproportionate number of the undecideds will vote for McCain. ... The question is not so much how large his lead is over the Republican, but whether or not he is topping 50 percent As long as the polling leaves him below that mark, he is vulnerable and could well lose."
Next contest
"The 2008 elections haven't even ended yet and already the first contest of 2009 is well under way. Sources tell Real Clear Politics that several prominent GOPers have already begun jockeying for position to run for chair of the Republican National Committee," Reid Wilson writes at www.realclearpolitics.com.
"But candidates may have a tougher time getting through what may be a crowded field than they expected. Two sources say current RNC chairman Mike Duncan has held discussions about the possibility of seeking a second term when members vote in January, with one source saying Duncan has already made phone calls to some RNC members. ...
"Others, including South Carolina party chairman Katon Dawson, former Tennessee party chief Chip Saltsman and Michigan party head Saul Anuzis, are all said to be
contemplating a bid for an upgrade to the national office The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder reported Tuesday that Texas Republican Party chairwoman Tina Benkiser has started making phone calls to gauge support."
Gripping drama
"Whether it was the hard times, serious national mood or a superb cast, 2008 will go down as a year of great political theater," Sandy Grady writes in USA Today.
"At this stage in past elections, we've all heard pseudo-sophisticates gripe, 'This is so endless and boring; wake me when it's over.' Or jaded malcontents grumble, 'Out of 300 million people, couldn't we get better candidates than these bums?'
"Not this time," the writer said.
"As someone who covered presidential campaigns for three decades, traveling with candidates and interviewing voters, the 2008 election has crackled with the highest level of intensity in my memory.
"Whether Republican nominee John McCain will defy the doomsday pollsters or Democratic candidate Barack Obama will launch a historic landslide win, the political season that began in Iowa and New Hampshire has been a vivid show of diverse actors, weird plots, dumbfounded pundits. Only hindsight will tell whether 2008 was a game-changing election in the way that Roosevelt-Hoover in 1932 led to the New Deal, Kennedy-Nixon in 1960 intensified the Cold War, or Reagan-Carter in 1980 began a Republican dominance.
"But there's no doubt that millions have felt a heightened sense of importance: This time it really matters. One clear reason is the gloom of impending crisis, two wars, the global economy and U.S. stock market in belly-churning tumble, and 85 percent of Americans saying we're on the 'wrong track.'"
End of the tour
Mark Williams flew home to Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday after spending the last two weeks on a bus crossing the country from Sacramento to Washington, D.C., on his "Stop Obama Tour."
In between, his Our Country Deserves Better political action committee tour bus made between 35 and 40 stops - "We lost count," he said - in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, before arriving Wednesday morning for a press conference at the National Press Club to make the case that Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama is "woefully inadequate to be president of the United States."
Mr. Williams, a radio talk-show host and newspaper columnist, said his PAC has spent $100,000 on television ads in the swing state of Nevada and $500,000 in blue-leaning Michigan on behalf of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain. He explained the Michigan ad buy by noting that both campaigns had vacated the state. "We had the playing field to ourselves," he said.
He screened the PAC 's newest ad, finished just hours before, to the gathering of supporters and reporters at the National Press Club.
Titled "Dictators Mock Obama's Ignorance," the satirical 30-second spot features actors portraying Cuba's Fidel Castro, North Korea's Kim Jong-il and other despots representing "the League of Rogue Nations" sitting around a conference table and laughing as Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad takes a phone call from a President Obama offering to meet with them with "no preconditions" at "a time and place of your choosing."
"We'll get back to you," the faux Iranian president answers, concluding the spot, which is also set to air nationally on the Fox News Channel. The ad can be seen at http://www.ourcountrydeservesbetter.com/.
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washington times.com.
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
October 30, 2008 Thursday
Money talks;
Is Obama buying the White House?
BYLINE: By Gary Andres, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A Republican activist I know had to mute his television while watching the Washington Redskins game last weekend. The constant barrage of Barack Obama advertising only intensified his growing depression. "It's like a bad '80s song," he told me. "I can't get the tune out of my head." Hitting the mute button wouldn't stop this Republican's gloomy political music, but all those so-called reformers concerned about money in elections aren't singing a lot these days either.
The Washington Post reported last weekend that the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party spent $105 million in the first two weeks of October. The Illinois senator's campaign alone doled out $82 million during that period for paid media - more than four times what Sen. John McCain spent during that same period, and half as much as Sen. John Kerry invested in television for his entire campaign in 2004. That kind of largess spurred other unprecedented moves, like last night's 30-minute network ad buys.
The tectonic plates of political money have shifted in the past several years, creating new opportunities for Democrats and dangerous sinkholes for Republicans. Democrats' newfound fundraising capacity and aptitude has changed the electoral landscape and helps explain not only Mr. Obama's success, but the resurgent strength of his party at the congressional level. But no one who used to say, "money corrupts" seems to care anymore.
For most of the post-World War II period, Republicans excelled on the money side of the equation. Democrats offset their financial deficit by mobilizing a strong ground game, getting help from labor unions and other liberal activists with get-out-the-vote efforts.
Both parties also raise money for various campaign entities, such as the Democratic and Republican National Committees, as well as their respective House and Senate campaign committees aimed at electing congressional candidates.
Ten years ago in the 1998 cycle, both the House GOP campaign arm, the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) and its Senate counterpart, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), buried their Democratic competitors - the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) - in the money chase. The NRCC collected nearly $43 million that cycle, compared to only $15 million for the DCCC. On the Senate side, the NRSC raised over $37 million. The DSCC collected only about half that amount (around $19 million).
In his new book, "Unequal Democracy," Princeton University political scientist Larry Bartels quantifies the electoral advantage of the past Republican money advantage. Mr. Bartels estimates that between 1952-2004, the GOP's extra spending added an average of 3.5 percent to their popular vote total each year.
Today we see a reversal of political fortune. Democrats have not only turned around their financial disadvantage - they actually lead now in fundraising among most of these partisan committees and certainly at the presidential campaign level. And if Mr. Bartels is right, more money means more votes. In the most recent data filed at the FEC, the DCCC has outraised the NRCC this cycle by $20 million, while the DSCC has collected about $35 million more than the NRSC. The RNC still outpaces the DNC, but the combined Democratic Party numbers are daunting. Considering that Mr. Obama has raised over $600 million to this point - and that the combined Democratic Party efforts now top $350 million - he and his party combined will raise and spend an unprecedented $1 billion in the election.
Yet Mr. Obama's newfound war chest has not been met with a chorus of complaints charging Democrats with trying to "buy the White House." As former Federal Election Chairman Brad Smith noted last Sunday in The Washington Post, Mr. Obama likes to emphasize his contributions from small donors, but he's also going to raise twice as much from $1,000 or more donors than any candidate in history.
Mr. Smith writes that Democrats and so-called "reformers" have always complained when Republicans held a fundraising advantage: "Where are they now?" The same newspaper reported this week Mr. Obama received over $100 million in September alone in online contributions. One donor gave $174, 800. The legal limit is $2,300 for the general election. Imagine the outrage among so-called reformers if a Republican presidential candidate engaged in these practices. It suggests their real concerns are rooted in politics.
After this election, Republicans should stop worrying about getting pummeled by television ads and figure out how never to get outspent like this again. But get prepared for the reformers to wake from their sleep and yell foul.
Gary Andres is vice chairman of Dutko Worldwide.
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
October 30, 2008 Thursday
BYLINE: THE WASHINGTON TIMES
John McCain has shown creativity and drive in his desire to solve energy problems for America. During his many years in the House and Senate, Mr. McCain has seen the U.S. struggle to wean itself from foreign oil as an energy source. He has created a plan for cleaner and new sources of energy. Mr. McCain knows the problems America's dependency on foreign oil entails. He is not naive about the need for new sources, and the staggering pain of energy costs for Americans. He understands how quickly the complex issues around energy can be solved. Mr. McCain has embraced the opportunities provided through developing new sources of energy in nuclear power, wind, hydro, solar, clean coal, untapped sources of natural gas and expanding domestic oil. He has specifically embraced the need for nuclear energy.
Mr. McCain was far ahead of the Democrats on this issue by putting it in his platform from the beginning. Early on in the campaign, Mr. Obama stayed away from even mentioning nuclear energy, primarily due to the complaints from the party's more liberal environmentalist base. If the liberal French can use nuclear energy in an environmentally friendly way, so can we. In fact, France has 59 nuclear power plants, according to the European Nuclear Society.
Mr. Obama has now included nuclear energy in his platform. Yet he also talks about how he worked on legislation in 2005 for nuclear energy waste-disposal regulation in the senate. The problem is that Mr. Obama has sided with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has discounted Yucca Mountain as a possible site for nuclear waste, but has yet to name any alternative site for such use. He also discusses regulation that would have to be enacted pursuant to the development of more nuclear-energy plants.
One-third of our oil comes from the Middle East and another third from our friendly neighbors such as Canada and Mexico. Mr. McCain has pointed out that American dollars for oil from the Middle East essentially support terrorists and dictators who threaten American peace. Mr. McCain supports offshore drilling, which would help reduce a 41 percent trade deficit from oil imports, grant access to billions of barrels of domestic oil, keep more American dollars in America and make the United States more energy independent.
Then there is the issue of offshore drilling, and Mr. McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who supports drilling on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) - which has remained untapped due to environmentalist protests. Mrs. Palin has also advocated a $40 billion natural-gas pipeline to link Alaska to the lower 48 states. She strongly advocates the need for America to be energy independent. Although, Mrs. Palin does not always agree with Mr. McCain, who voted against drilling on ANWR, the two have agreed on twin common goals of energy independence and energy security.
Additionally, Mr. McCain plans to build a pipeline infrastructure so that we can use the 77 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) which will lower energy prices. Barack Obama does not plan to allow drilling in the OCS. And Mr. McCain will provide incentives for research and development so that plug-in hybrid and full electric automobiles become a viable commercial option. Electric and hybrid cars are also cleaner and better for the environment. Automakers will be provided with a $5,000 tax credit for each zero-emissions car that is sold.
Mr. McCain would halt subsidies for corn-based ethanol. Research and development for market-based clear alternative fuels - solar, hydro and wind - will be encouraged by a system of tax credits that eventually will become a viable part of the marketplace.
Moreover, the federal government, which is the largest electricity consumer on Earth, will be subject to stricter regulations to save taxpayer money. Mr. McCain has no plans for a state run energy system, unlike Mr. Obama.
We believe, a McCain-Palin administration would aggressively pursue every avenue for increased energy production while balancing a more common-sense approach to protect the environment. Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin understand the need for cheaper, more efficient energy and the importance of free-market solutions to get us there. Mr. Obama has yet to give such an approach a full-throated endorsement.
Mr. McCain has named his comprehensive energy plan the Lexington Project after the Massachusetts town where Americans historically asserted their independence. "In a world of hostile and unstable suppliers of oil, this nation will achieve strategic independence by 2025," said Mr. McCain during a campaign speech. His assertion is correct, America must become energy independent.
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 29, 2008 Wednesday
Metro Edition
VA. ELECTION BOARD TO COUNT MILITARY WRITE-IN BALLOTS
BYLINE: Michael Sluss mike.sluss@roanoke.com (804) 697-1585
SECTION: VIRGINIA; Campaign Notebook: Election Day is Nov. 4; Pg. B4
The Virginia state Board of Elections decided Tuesday to follow the advice of Attorney General Bob McDonnell and count the absentee ballots of military voters whose federal forms did not contain certain information required under Virginia law.
The board's unanimous decision ended a controversy regarding the treatment of about 100 write-in absentee ballots cast by military voters serving overseas. The dispute stemmed from the Fairfax County registrar's decision to set aside those ballots because witnesses failed to include their addresses on the ballot applications as required by state law. The federal absentee form, which can be used in all 50 states, does not provide for witnesses' addresses.
McDonnell issued an advisory opinion Monday concluding that the ballots should be counted because federal law trumps state law in such issues. Republicans supporting presidential candidate John McCain argued last week that the votes should be counted. Representatives for the state Democratic Party and presidential candidate Barack Obama also sent a letter to the board late Monday urging that the ballots be counted.
The Board of Elections moved quickly Tuesday to accept McDonnell's opinion, but board secretary Nancy Rodrigues also defended local registrars who flagged ballots that did not comply with state law.
"I just wish that folks would stop vilifying people for doing their jobs," Rodrigues said.
-- Michael Sluss
Goode, Perriello to debate on election eve
Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Rocky Mount, and Democratic challenger Tom Perriello will debate at 7 p.m. Monday on WGSR in Martinsville.
The debate could be a good opportunity for the Perriello campaign, said Jessica Barba, communications director.
"For the presidential election, most people would have made up minds by then," she said. "But with the congressional election, we don't get as much attention. And that's a very important area to us."
Messages left for Goode were not returned.
Goode canceled the first televised debate, scheduled for Oct. 7, citing a scheduling conflict.
It is unusual for an incumbent to agree to a televised debate on the night before the election, but the debate will only be broadcast to areas of the district in which Goode has always run strong.
-- Janelle Rucker
Perriello embarks on "Election Express" tour
Perriello has loaded up a recreational vehicle and is heading to each of the 5th District's 22 counties.
The "Election Express" left from Charlottesville on Tuesday and made stops in Southside, including Danville, for the American Legion debate against Goode.
Today, stops are scheduled at Mary's Diner in Danville at 12:30 p.m. and Chatham Courthouse at 2 p.m. The tour will continue with a few stops in South Boston as well.
Information on each stop is available at www.perrielloforcongress.com
-- Janelle Rucker
Mike Huckabee stumps in Southwest Virginia
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and a former president of the National Rifle Association will visit Southwest Virginia this morning to rally support for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
Huckabee and former NRA president Sandy Froman will hold a "Faith and Family" rally at 10 a.m. at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center in Abingdon. Huckabee waged a surprisingly strong bid for the GOP presidential nomination earlier this year and has been a visible surrogate for McCain this fall.
The NRA has been unsparing in its criticism of Democrat Barack Obama's record on gun issues, warning that Obama would be "the most anti-gun president in American history."
In campaign trips to Southwest Virginia and in a television ad airing in the state, Obama has insisted that he will not deprive law-abiding citizens of their gun rights.
-- Michael Sluss
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
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The Washington Post
October 29, 2008 Wednesday
Regional Edition
BYLINE: Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
It May Be Time to Drop a Few Balls Around Town
Mothball those ball gowns! Washington's black-tie blowouts are going the way of your 401(k). Monday's gala for the Shakespeare Theatre's Harman Center for the Arts took a hit -- and that's only the beginning of what looks like a seismic shift on the charity scene.
The $1,000-a-ticket fundraiser (honoring Chita Rivera, choreographers Rennie Harris and Peter Martins, and benefactor Sidney Harman) raised almost $900,000, but fell short of the $1.2 million goal -- even though most of the money was raised before the economy went south. Individual patrons were "very, very generous," but corporate donations fell off, co-chair Beth Dozoretz said. "We worked very hard. Usually these things happen with just a push. This was a lot of asking." To save money, designer David Stark filled the National Building Museum with white ribbon streamers and candles instead of flowers; organizers hired a DJ instead of a band.
Doesn't bode well for D.C.'s spring fundraisers, which will have to fight over donors or downscale dramatically. And what does this all mean for January's inauguration? Still too many of those overcrowded, underwhelming fancy balls, no doubt, but nothing like the $40 million celebrations of 2000 and 2004.
He Might Not Be Political, but He Knows the Score
Republicans and Democrats are increasingly singing the same tune -- at least in their campaign ads.
From his studio in Clarendon, composer Todd Hahn provides the soundtrack for candidates across the country. He's worked for both teams over the years and says their tastes are slowly converging.
The GOP sound -- like the ads he scored for John McCain in 2000 -- used to be "very heroic, very cinematic," with studio-synthesized French horns and timpani, "big, dense, orchestral." The Dems leaned toward a "Bruce Springsteen sound" with guitars. Now everyone likes an acoustic, "organic" sound, he says.
"The music is the subliminal delivery agent of the message," Hahn says. "They're like 30-second film scores, designed to tweak people's emotions good or bad."
For a positive Obama ad ("Three Bedroom Ranch"), Hahn scored talk of the candidate's economic plan with twinkly soft-rock. For a negative one ("Book") blasting McCain's plan, Hahn laid down agitated rhythms and an ominous whoosh he calls "ethereal wash."
As for Hahn's own politics, "I'm right up the middle," he said. "I failed all my government courses in high school. I still don't know a lot about it."
This Just In . . .
· Ted Kennedy returned to his D.C. home last night -- his first time in the city since July. "He thought this would be a good time to be back," said spokesman Anthony Coley. "He may pop into the office at some point." Kennedy, battling brain cancer, will stay until Thanksgiving; undecided if he'll join the post-election Senate session.
· Libertarian Bob Barr -- who brags he's the only presidential candidate with a concealed-firearm permit (he holsters a .45 Glock) -- yesterday offered a "new, in the box, hard to find, 12 gauge Mossberg Model 590A pump shotgun" to the donor who contributes the highest sum by midnight tonight.
End Quote
"If some thug breaks into my home, I can use my roundhouse kick. But I prefer he look down the barrel of my gun."
-- "Black-belt patriot" Chuck Norris urging voters to seek out gun-rights candidates in his first-ever NRA ad, which rolled out yesterday in 10 battleground states. The Mike Huckabee supporter recently wrote that John McCain won his vote by picking Sarah Palin as his running mate.
LOAD-DATE: October 29, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 29, 2008 Wednesday
Suburban Edition
Obama's Ad 'Roadblock' Gets Traction
Univision, BET and TV One are joining CBS, NBC and Fox to carry Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's paid half-hour TV address tonight -- just six days before the election.
And while MSNBC also will join in the fun, CNN reports that it took a pass, and Fox News Channel confirms it wasn't even asked to the party.
ABC, the only major broadcaster not carrying the infomercial after the network hemmed and hawed so long the Obama camp moved on, is weirdly being rewarded with a Wednesday one-on-one with the candidate for its evening newscast, which will air shortly before "The Barack Obama Show" takes over prime time at 8 p.m.
But, if watching Charlie Gibson peer over his skinny glasses to ask Obama what the Bush Doctrine means is your idea of some kind of not fun, you can instead catch Obama's infomercial postmortem at 11 p.m. on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," where he will appear via satellite as a giant talking head.
In between "The Barack Obama Show" and the Comedy Central postmortem, Obama's GOP rival, John McCain, also will have a chance to spin the infomercial -- on CNN's "Larry King Live."
CNN was approached by Obama's campaign about taking tonight's time buy, but unlike MSNBC took a pass. "We'd rather use our air to continue to cover the campaign, candidates and issues like we always do from all points of view with the best political team on television," CNN said in a statement. Whatev.
In other Barack Obama Is Taking Over Wednesday news, Mother Nature cast her vote Monday, when she not only rained out Game 5 of the World Series after 5 1/2 innings -- the first time a World Series game wasn't played to completion on the same day -- but kept up the downpour so long it forced Major League Baseball to announce that Game 5 would not be wrapped up until tonight.
What's expected to be a very short night of baseball -- maybe just a three-inning "game" -- pretty much ensures Obama's speech will air on the three major broadcast networks at the start of prime time on the West Coast as well as the East Coast, shoring up the desired "roadblock" programming effect.
Originally, the Fox broadcast network accepted the time buy only after Major League Baseball agreed to postpone the first pitch of Game 6 of the World Series by about 15 minutes to enable Fox to air the 30-minute time buy at 8. Fox told Obama's camp it could run the speech at 8 in the Eastern time zone but had to wait until after the game to air the message on the West Coast because of its contractual obligations to Major League Baseball.
Fox execs expect Game 5 Part Deux to end well before 8 p.m. Pacific time, which means they can run the Obama buy at 8 in that time zone.
* * *
The World Series face-off between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays on Fox couldn't distract enough viewers from CBS's procedural crime dramas, keeping the eye network at the top of the ratings heap for a fourth consecutive week.
Here's a look at the week's most and least:
WINNERS
"The Cleaner." A&E renews its Benjamin Bratt intervention series, which, according to Nielsen Media Research, is the most engaging cable show among Democrats and Republicans alike.
"Ghost Whisperer." Blog chatter about ominous-ish things that may be happening to Melinda's husband scared up more than 10 million viewers -- the CBS show's biggest audience in nearly three years.
"Life." When NBC's sophomore do-over series showed signs of life, including rampant DVR-viewing, the network plucked it from certain death on Friday and sent it to the relative safety of Wednesday.
"Mad Men." Some critics can't stand this period drama's 1960s pacing, but nearly 1.8 million viewers showed up for the second-season finale on AMC Sunday -- compared with 926,000 viewers for the first season's wrap-up.
"D.L. Hughley Breaks the News." Debut of CNN's newsedy show, featuring former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan's latest Dumping on the GOP act, attracted 1.5 million viewers Saturday night. That's 72 percent more people than had watched CNN's actual news show in the time slot this year.
"Gary Unmarried." CBS's latest exercise in Male Pattern Optimism -- doughy, dumb-ish guy scores the hot chick -- logs its best numbers to date, 7.6 million viewers, mostly because Fox did not air "Bones" that night, driving its chicks to "Gary." CBS rewarded the Wednesday farm-team sitcom with a Monday night tryout.
"Dancing With the Stars." ABC scrubs Ashton Kutcher's reality series "Opportunity Knocks," replaces it with more granny on the dance floor in age-inappropriate costumes -- a.k.a. "Dancing With the Stars" recap show starring Cloris Leachman -- and the time slot jumps from 5 million viewers to 9 million.
LOSERS
"Stylista." "America's Next Top Model" welcomes new "Stylista" with a lead-in audience of 4.4 million; "Stylista" fumbles all but 2.4 million of the viewers, which is barely better than CW was doing in the time period with repeats of the next generation of "90210."
World Series. With the Tampa Bay Rays in the mix, Saturday's game rained out until 10 p.m. and Monday's game carried over two nights due to rain, this year's series is on track to be the lowest-rated ever, though even in its depressed state, the World Series still managed to attract as many as 15.5 million viewers on Sunday.
"The Ex List." "Ghost Whisperer" delivers a lead-in advantage of 4 million to the newcomer, which, by its second half-hour, had fallen to fourth place in its Friday time slot. CBS yanked "Ex List" because it had only a narrow, young-female appeal. Maybe NBC wants it.
"Lipstick Jungle." NBC's other sophomore do-over series struggles on Wednesday, causing the network to send it to Friday, where all chick dramedies go to die. RIP, "Lipstick Jungle."
The week's 10 most watched programs: CBS's "CSI"; ABC's "Dancing With the Stars"; CBS's "NCIS"; ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" results show and "Desperate Housewives"; Fox's World Series Game 4; CBS's "The Mentalist," "Criminal Minds" and "Two and a Half Men"; and Fox's World Series Game 1.
LOAD-DATE: October 29, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 29, 2008 Wednesday
Met 2 Edition
How They Would Change Health Care;
McCain's Proposal for High-Risk Coverage Is Similar to a Program in Minnesota
BYLINE: Amy Goldstein; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
When Diane Derichs's husband was retiring from his assembly-line job making fruit bars for ConAgra Foods, the couple invited over an insurance agent to help her find a health plan.
A part-time hairdresser, Derichs, at 58, was too young for the Medicare that her husband, Vernold, could already get. Sitting at their kitchen table in a St. Paul suburb, Derichs told the agent about the back surgery she had once needed for her scoliosis, the bad tendons in her feet, the lupus that causes painful sores on her skin.
Blue Cross Blue Shield, the agent discovered, wouldn't accept her. Nor would Mutual of Omaha. Or any other company he checked. "It's like, whammo, don't get sick," Derichs said. "As soon as I said 'lupus,' it was just like: 'Red flag. Sorry, can't do anything.' "
And so, on the agent's advice, she signed up for the Minnesota Comprehensive Health Association, a last-ditch chance at coverage that the state offers to those the insurance industry does not want.
How well this nonprofit corporation -- and similar ones set up by nearly three dozen other states -- can serve insurance castaways such as Derichs is a test of Sen. John McCain's road map for the nation's health-care system. High-risk pools, as such arrangements are known, are a linchpin of the Republican presidential nominee's thinking about how to make health insurance more plentiful and less expensive.
If McCain is elected president next week, he has said, he would work to remove the tax preference for company health benefits and offer Americans tax credits to put toward any health plan they choose. He wants to let people buy health plans from insurance companies anywhere in the country, preempting state regulations that spell out whom insurance carriers must cover and what kinds of benefits they must provide.
McCain acknowledges that such a free-market climate would inevitably freeze out some people with serious medical problems who are looking for insurance on their own. So he is calling for a guaranteed access plan, a federal effort to share the cost of high-risk pools and dramatically expand their reach -- from fewer than 200,000 Americans in state plans today to perhaps 5 million.
A philosophical difference between the presidential candidates over health insurance comes down to this: Given that relatively few people have extremely expensive medical problems, is it better to require insurance companies to include them with everyone else, as Democrat Barack Obama favors, or to separate them, as McCain prefers, in insurance pools just for them?
Among the high-risk pools in 34 states, Minnesota's is the oldest, largest and, many believe, the most successful. "It just seems to work," said Doug Holtz-Eakin, senior policy adviser to McCain.
Created in a wave of health-care changes here in the late 1970s, the Minnesota Comprehensive Health Association (MCHA) had a membership of 28,000 last year, equaling nearly 7 percent of the state's uninsured population. Small as that share was, it far exceeded any other state's, according to the National Association of State Comprehensive Insurance Plans.
The price of belonging to MCHA is lower than in most states, set one-fifth above the cost of the average individual insurance policy in Minnesota. Like all such programs, MCHA requires a waiting period for new members before it will pay for treatment of medical problems they already had -- but the six-month wait here excludes drugs and is shorter than in some places.
Its finances are strained and getting worse, but less so than in other states. California's high-risk pool is so strapped that it put a limit on enrollment this year and lowered the maximum it would spend on anyone's treatment. Tennessee's pool has had to eliminate low-income subsidies for new members. Florida's pool has not let in anyone since 1991.
The Maryland Health Insurance Plan, the only high-risk pool in the Washington area, has been growing so fast that it needed to raise the fees on hospitals that help pay for the program and require new members to wait longer for coverage of existing illnesses -- or pay extra for it.
Here in Minneapolis, Lynn R. Gruber, MCHA's president, said: "We treat them like gold. It's all we do, focus on these chronically ill members, what their needs are." Members get discounts on specialty drugs. Those who are particularly sick get letters or phone calls coaching them on how best to manage their ailments.
Members must be rejected by at least one insurance company to join. Some come and go from the program, but many find it a long-term insurance haven.
Betty Clark joined 22 years ago when she left a corporate job to start her own business auditing insurance carriers for businesses. She was in her late 30s with no major health problems and was startled to be rejected for coverage because she weighed 190 pounds.
Clark, now 59, pays nearly $500 a month in premiums. MCHA has covered a hysterectomy, spine surgery, two stents in her heart and diabetes treatment. "Without MCHA, I never would have my company," she said.
Still, even MCHA's most ardent supporters believe a risk pool is not the best solution for those who are hard to insure. "It is not a panacea. . . . We need to be moving in the direction of universal coverage," said Gruber, who has run MCHA for 18 years. "No one should be rejected because of their health conditions. Our federal government has failed us . . . if we are still here in five or 10 years."
Kristin Flaten, one of two consumer representatives on the board of directors, said: "The most vocal people in MCHA are mad about being in MCHA. They don't like being told they are high risk. They don't like paying the extra money. There is a perceived unfairness they are being treated like that, and the insurance companies are getting away with it."
No one in Minnesota can say for certain how many people who need MCHA stay away because of the price or the waiting period. But the American Cancer Society says that only a tiny fraction of the more than 100 Minnesotans it has referred to the program because they were rejected by insurance companies ever signed up, according to Stephen Finan, the society's associate director of policy.
As another sign of the financial burden, an increasing number of MCHA's members lately have been choosing to pay more out of their pockets -- deductibles as high as $10,000 -- in order to have less expensive monthly premiums.
Some cannot afford MCHA at all. LaVonne Kees, 59, a widow in the suburb of St. Louis Park, was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer in August 2007. She was still getting chemotherapy when she was laid off in June from her job as a distribution clerk for a hospital supply company.
Along with her job, she lost the United HealthCare plan that had cost her $22.50 a month. She went on COBRA, a federal arrangement that lets displaced workers temporarily keep group health benefits, but she lost that coverage in a dispute over when her second premium was due. Her small retirement account made her not quite poor enough for Medicaid, so she called MCHA.
The woman on the phone told her it would cost $500 to $600 a month. "I thought, 'Oh, really?' " Kees said. Living on $900 unemployment checks, with rent and car payments, "there is no way I could pay that." After her last chemotherapy treatment, she got a $26,000 bill. She canceled scans in September that would have determined whether she needed more chemotherapy. She canceled an appointment with her oncologist. "As of right now," she said, "everything is kind of at a standstill."
High as they are, members' premiums cover only half of MCHA's costs. The leftover losses -- absorbed by fees on some insurance companies -- have been growing fast. They more than doubled in six years, to $120 million in 2007, and are rising this year more quickly than expected, with recent estimates close to $150 million.
"I don't know how you run a thing with a $120, $130 million loss a year. It seems to be getting a bit large," said MCHA's board chairwoman, Kathy Mock, who is also vice president for public affairs at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota.
As the program is getting more expensive, fewer insurers are helping to pay for it because of a federal legal quirk that exempts self-insured companies. As a result, the losses are being spread among a shrinking group of commercial insurance carriers. Gruber called it ironic that the Minnesota government in 2005 became self-insured for state workers, so even it no longer chips in.
McCain has said that, under his guaranteed access plan, the federal government would cover half the cost of such pools, with the rest paid by states and the insurance industry. In the spring, Holtz-Eakin estimated that the federal share might be $7 billion or $8 billion a year. "It's going to be twice that, realistically," he said in a recent interview.
Minnesota has been getting a small amount of federal help lately, through grants Congress approved to subsidize people with low incomes. The money, though, has been unpredictable. MCHA recently decided to let people with slightly higher incomes qualify for that help, only to discover that its grant this year was less than the last one. That means each eligible person will get a smaller check.
In such an environment, members such as Derichs are grateful for the coverage but resentful of its price. MCHA has helped Derichs pay for a hernia repair this spring and the expensive drugs she takes for lupus. She is scheduled for a second foot surgery next month.
Yet her monthly premium has gone from $389 when she joined two years ago, to $439 when she turned 60 last winter, to $506 with a rate increase in June. "Oh, man, it's almost too much," Derichs said.
"I guess the thing that kind of saddens me is, we were people who did put money aside for retirement. We weren't planning to go to Hawaii or Florida for six months -- just a comfortable retirement," Derichs said. Paying for MCHA "is a real struggle. It's almost to the point people say, to hell with it. . . . But our priorities at this point are, yes, we need health insurance, because we have health situations. Right now, we can't take that chance."
LOAD-DATE: October 29, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post
IMAGE; By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post; With a week left until the election, the presidential candidates campaigned in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Democrat Barack Obama greets supporters at a rally in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester, while 90 miles away, Republican John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, are cheered in Hershey. The economy has become the focus for both campaigns. Story, A6.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 29, 2008 Wednesday
Suburban Edition
Accuracy Of Polls a Question In Itself;
Skeptics Challenge Assumptions Made
BYLINE: Michael Abramowitz; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02
Could the polls be wrong?
Sen. John McCain and his allies say that they are. The country, they say, could be headed to a 2008 version of the famous 1948 upset election, with McCain in the role of Harry S. Truman and Sen. Barack Obama as Thomas E. Dewey, lulled into overconfidence by inaccurate polls.
"We believe it is a very close race, and something that is frankly very winnable," Sarah Simmons, director of strategy for the McCain campaign, said yesterday.
Few analysts outside the McCain campaign appear to share this view. And pollsters this time around will not make the mistake that the Gallup organization made 60 years ago -- ending their polling more than a week before the election and missing a last-minute surge in support for Truman. Every day brings dozens of new state and national presidential polls, a trend that is expected to continue up to Election Day.
Still, there appears to be an undercurrent of worry among some polling professionals and academics. One reason is the wide variation in Obama leads: Just yesterday, an array of polls showed the Democrat leading by as little as two points and as much as 15 points. The latest Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll showed the race holding steady, with Obama enjoying a lead of 52 percent to 45 percent among likely voters.
Some in the McCain camp also argue that the polls showing the largest leads for Obama mistakenly assume that turnout among young voters and African Americans will be disproportionately high. The campaign is banking on a good turnout among GOP partisans, whom McCain officials say they are working hard to attract to the polls.
"I have been wondering for weeks" whether the polls are accurately gauging the state of the race, said Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota. Borrowing from lingo popularized by former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Schier asked what are the "unknown unknowns" about polling this year: For instance, is the sizable cohort of people who don't respond to pollsters more Republican-leaning this year, perhaps because they don't want to admit to a pollster that they are not supporting the "voguish" Obama?
If so, that could mean the polls are routinely understating McCain's support. "I have no evidence that this is happening," Schier said, but he added: "I'm still thinking there's a 25 percent chance that this is a squeaker race and McCain pulls it out."
Other experts are less uncertain. Ruy Teixeira, a political demographer at the Center for American Progress and the Century Foundation, said averaging the daily polls points to "pretty much the same thing -- that the race is pretty stable and that Obama has a stable lead. Typically, when you are this far ahead at this point, it's hard to lose."
"It is very unlikely that we are going to get surprised by a last-minute movement," said John R. Petrocik, chairman of the political science department at the University of Missouri. "Obama has been running six to eight points ahead for the better part of two weeks, and it's hard to imagine that turning around."
The McCain campaign's case that the race is closer than many polls suggest appears to rest largely on the proposition that the composition of the electorate this year will closely resemble that in 2004.
McCain pollsters do anticipate that turnout could be even higher this year than the robust turnout four years ago, but they also expect that Democratic gains among African American voters and younger voters will be offset by higher turnout among more Republican-leaning voters. They also assert the race is tightening in battleground states, with independent voters increasingly receptive to McCain.
"As other public polls begin to show Senator Obama dropping below 50% and the margin over McCain beginning to approach margin of error with a week left, all signs say we are headed to an election that may easily be too close to call by next Tuesday," McCain pollster Bill McInturff wrote in a memo released last night by the campaign. Obama officials voiced confidence in their ultimate victory but said they have always expected the election to be close.
To buttress its point of view, the McCain team points to results reported yesterday by the Gallup organization, whose daily tracking poll showed Obama up 49 percent to 47 percent using Gallup's traditional turnout model, which assumes that turnout will follow the patterns of past elections. Obama has a larger lead, seven points, using a model that allows a higher presence of first-time voters.
A Pew Research Center poll released yesterday shows a 15-point lead for Obama, a result based on relaxed criteria for when to consider an African American respondent a likely voter, said Andrew Kohut, president of the center. He said the poll shows that roughly 12 percent of the electorate this year is black, up from 2004, with a similar increase among younger voters. Kohut defended this approach, saying there are historically high levels of interest in this contest among both demographic groups. At the same time, he added, "we've consistently shown less enthusiasm and engagement among Republicans than is typical, and the composition of the electorate shows that."
Kohut said several variables signal Obama has not convinced voters, such as a large number of respondents in the Pew poll who see the Illinois Democrat as a risky choice. But Kohut said the odds are against "a huge shift" in voter preferences by Election Day.
Some polls show Obama with a healthy lead even without an assumed surge in African American and young voters. Obama's seven-point lead in the Washington Post-ABC News poll is not premised on disproportionately higher turnout among those demographic groups. The poll's turnout model currently shows that 10 percent of likely voters are black, compared with the 11 percent who voted in 2004, according to the network exit poll. Voters younger than 30 make up 16 percent of the Post-ABC sample, little different from the 17 percent four years ago.
Post polling director Jon Cohen said the survey designers "carefully consider a range of likely voter scenarios and use our best judgment. Our polling throughout the campaign has been on target and, we believe, helpful to understanding what is really happening. I hope it stays that way."
He noted that to address "one potential pitfall," The Post and ABC conduct interviews with a random selection of those who have only cellular phone service alongside a traditional random sample of those with residential phone service. One recent criticism of current polling has been that it does not accurately capture the sentiments of those who primarily use cellphones.
LOAD-DATE: October 29, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Michael Williamson -- The Washington Post; Sen. Barack Obama greets supporters during a rally at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. An array of polls yesterday showed the Democratic presidential nominee leading by as little as two points and as much as 15 points.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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October 29, 2008 Wednesday
Obama to debut TV infomercial;
Eyes multinetwork audience
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni and S.A. Miller, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG, Va.
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama will showcase his campaign war chest Wednesday night in a 30-minute commercial to air before the World Series, spending about $1 million per spot to communicate directly with viewers across several networks at the same time.
With six days to go until Election Day, the front-runner is greatly outspending his Republican rival Sen. John McCain on television ads across a map of battleground states. The Republican National Committee has been forced to go on the defensive in traditionally safe states such as West Virginia and Montana.
Mr. Obama ran 1,350 ads to Mr. McCain's 331 on Sunday in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to Nielsen Media Research. Nielsen reported, however, that Mr. McCain increased his ads in those states, running 1,353 to Mr. Obama's 1,528. From Oct. 6 through Monday, Mr. Obama ran 64,917 ads to Mr. McCain's 25,630 in those seven battleground states, Nielsen calculated.
The Obama campaign would reveal few details about the 8 p.m. ad purchase, only calling it a "program" that would offer "specifics" on his plans.
"With this historic election only a week away - and John McCain's angry, desperate attacks mounting by the day - we want to make sure every voter heading into the voting booth knows exactly what Barack Obama would do to bring about fundamental change as president," spokesman Bill Burton said.
Larry J. Sabato, political science professor at the University of Virginia, noted that this gap in funding, which the half-hour buy reflects, was partially the result of prohibitions Mr. McCain himself championed on "soft money," previously unregulated funds spent by political parties and other groups on behalf of candidates.
Under current laws, the Republican National Committee can help Mr. McCain by paying for some TV and radio ads. But "soft money" -funded outside groups could have helped Mr. McCain and fellow Republican candidates fill the gap in previous years.
"Obama's extra money is the icing on the cake for the Democrat in a year when almost everything has moved in his direction," Mr. Sabato said. "Obama's money advantage has unquestionably forced McCain to scramble furiously around the country, nailing Jell-O to the wall, trying to lock down red states that keep turning purple once he leaves."
The spot will air on Fox, CBS, NBC and the cable network MSNBC. But ABC will go with its regular programming, dramatic comedy "Pushing Daisies." ABC is doing a promotion, telling viewers they can "get political with the other networks" or watch the newest episode of the series.
Republicans mocked the Obama spot, a tactic last used by billionaire candidate H. Ross Perot in 1992 in his failed independent bid for the presidency. Mr. Obama has outspent Mr. McCain, having raised more than $600 million for his presidential bid while Mr. McCain agreed to take $84 million in public funds.
The McCain campaign said Mr. Obama's stockpile of cash and ubiquitous TV ads underscore the Democrat's broken promise to use public financing. McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds stressed that Mr. McCain has enough cash on hand to remain competitive in the closing days of the race.
Mr. Obama also is maximizing his TV time. When Obama ads pop up on television, viewers with digital video recorders are given an option to click through to the Obama infomercial channel that plays his longer, specific and positive spots on a loop.
On the stump Tuesday, Mr. Obama continued to give his "closing argument" and saying he needs to make sure people actually vote.
He pushed through a morning rally in Chester, Pa., despite near-freezing rain, rallying 9,000. Mr. McCain, meanwhile, canceled his nearby outdoor event owing to the weather.
His campaign also posted a Web video urging supporters to "ask for the day off" to volunteer and "make calls, knock on doors, get out the vote."
"You can't make history" from your couch or computer, the spot tells supporters.
LOAD-DATE: October 29, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
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October 29, 2008 Wednesday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE POLITICS; A06
The pollsters
"While the political pundit class and the major network broadcasters are pulling their weight for Obama, I do not think it is fair to argue that all the pollsters are doing the same," Richard Baehr writes at www.americanthinker.com.
"I think this is a very difficult environment to be polling. Estimating how much of an increase there will be in turnout by African Americans or young voters is guesswork at best. Jay Cost has shown that the variability in polling results this year is a good bit larger than in 2004," Mr. Baehr said.
"The party identification distribution of those polled also has a big effect, with near 90 percent support by both Democrats and Republicans for their party's candidate. Some pollsters weight their surveys to fit their party ID model and others don't. ...
"I trust Rasmussen more than Gallup among the large survey size daily trackers because his numbers have been less volatile all year, and
I can compare his national numbers to his state numbers to see if they make sense, and by and large they do
"I do not trust polls sponsored by shamefully partisan organizations such as the dailykos.com, whose Research 2000 surveys are used to fire up contributors and activists. Other partisan pollsters - Strategic Vision, Democracy Corps, and PPP seem to have a bit more credibility, though I trust them less than nonpartisan surveys, and their history this year is predictably favorable to one side or the other compared to poll averages.
"I trust tracking polls more than I do the once-every-two-week surveys by various national newspaper and TV stations or newsmagazines, which tend to have smaller sample sizes in their surveys.
"If Rasmussen shows a tie or near tie next Monday in its national tracking poll, plan on a long election night."
Taxes and markets
"Are Barack Obama's proposed tax increases adversely affecting our financial markets? We say yes, unambiguously," Jack Kemp and Peter Ferrara write in Investor's Business Daily.
"The senator has done a masterful job distracting attention from his tax increases with his $500-per-worker tax credit supposedly for 95 percent of Americans," the writers said.
"Obama has also set forth more than half a dozen additional refundable income tax credits targeted to low- and moderate-income workers for child care, education, housing, welfare, retirement, health care and other social purposes.
"These tax credits are devised to phase-out based on income, which will ultimately increase marginal income tax rates for middle-class workers. In other words, as you earn more, you suffer a penalty in the phase-out of these credits, which has the exact effect of a marginal tax rate increase. That harms, rather than improves, the economy.
"With the bottom 40 percent of income earners not paying any federal income taxes, such tax credits would not reduce any tax liability for these workers. Instead, since they're refundable, they would involve new checks from the federal government.
"These are not tax cuts as Obama is promising. They are new government spending programs buried in the tax code and estimated to cost $1.3 trillion over 10 years."
Bad ad
The Heritage Foundation on Tuesday asked Sen. Barack Obama to immediately pull two ads that the think tank said misrepresent the views of Heritage's Rea Hederman.
"The campaign has released a 30-second TV ad with false information and repeats it on the campaign Web site," Heritage said in a press release.
Heritage's attorney, Alan P. Dye, in a letter to the Obama campaign, said, "Two recent campaign advertisements seriously misrepresent the views of my client, the Heritage Foundation. They suggest, quite falsely, that the Heritage Foundation and one of its analysts support your tax plan.
"The print ad on your Web site as well as your ad entitled 'Try This' reference a quote from policy analyst Rea Hederman. In fact, Mr. Hederman never said what is quoted there. Rather, the words you quote are from a New York Sun reporter who interviewed Mr. Hederman and summarized his views erroneously.
"That the reporter's summary is erroneous is evident from the actual quotes from Mr. Hederman presented in the article, which make it quite clear that Mr. Hederman believes your tax plan would be bad not only for the country, but for the middle class. By omitting the direct quotes from Heritage that are contained in the article and attributing to Heritage a conflicting statement not made by its analyst, the advertisement appears to be an intentional attempt to mislead."
The lawyer added: "Surely there can be no doubt within your campaign as to how Heritage truly views your tax plan. When one of your economic advisors, Jeffrey Liebman, made this same misrepresentation in a September 4, 2008, letter to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Hederman promptly sent a corrective and very public letter."
Hitting the exits
"I've long considered myself a bad Republican," San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders writes.
"During the Bush administration, for example, I've felt free to whack George W. and Republicans in Congress for passing big-spending bills, such as their pork-rich 2002 farm bill, the underfunded prescription-drug bill and earmark spending. But in 2008, I find that I'm a piker in the bad Republican department," she said.
"Enter Christopher Buckley, the satirical novelist and GOP legacy prince who wrote a piece in the New York Times in February excoriating Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives for not supporting John McCain for president, despite McCain's conservative credentials and unassailable character. This month, Buckley announced he would vote for Democrat Barack Obama for president, as McCain's campaign had rendered the former POW 'inauthentic.'
"Republicans Colin Powell, William Weld and Scott McClellan also have endorsed Obama. On Friday, Limbaugh lashed out at Buckley and company, as he asked, 'What the hell happened to your theory that only John McCain could enlarge this party, that we had to get moderates and independents?' ...
"Limbaugh should ease off on the 'moderate' bashing Buckley, Powell, Weld and McClellan don't represent moderate Republicans so much as they represent themselves - and a small universe of New York and Beltway conservatives who have not retreated to the middle, but simply bolted for the nearest exit."
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes .com.
LOAD-DATE: October 29, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 28, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
GOP Senator Banks on Obama in Oregon Race;
Ads Using Illinois Democrat Play to Tradition of Centrism
BYLINE: Karl Vick; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
In the state where President Bush has his lowest popularity ratings in the nation, the incumbent Republican senator is reaching across the aisle and groping for the coattails of Barack Obama.
Sen. Gordon Smith, a two-term moderate in a state with a history of embracing centrist Republicans such as Mark Hatfield, has put the Democratic candidate for president in not one, not two, but three of his television ads.
How many mention John McCain?
"Zero," said Brooks Kochvar, manager of a Republican campaign that cannot accurately be described as running away from its party label. This is more of a sprint.
"Yeah, he's registered Republican," a timber man says in one Smith ad, "but . . ." But he worked with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), says another spot. Yet another invokes Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), whose name still appears on fading bumper stickers in liberal Portland. "If you need any more telling indication of where the race is, or where the Republican Party is, what else can you say?" said Tim Hibbits, a Portland pollster whose surveys are among the many showing Smith falling behind Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley.
"He's in a hell of a mess," Hibbits said. "This is a state that tends to lean Democratic to begin with. Bush basically has destroyed the Republican brand here."
On a national electoral map remade by the economic crisis, Oregon offers Democrats one of the trickier challenges in the quest for the 60 seats that would make their majority filibuster-proof.
Enthusiasm for Obama clearly has hastened Oregon's shift from swing state into the Democratic column. This year, registration drives brought 167,000 more Democrats onto rolls, against a rise of 7,000 for Republicans. Democrats now have a 43 percent to 32 percent registration advantage.
"That's indicative of the shift that's going on underneath the surface of our politics here," said William Lunch, a political scientist at Oregon State University, noting steady Democratic election gains since 2002.
Before last week, the Obama campaign had offered scant help to Merkley, who said, "He has so much money, he's doing his own thing here." But on Friday afternoon, Obama began showing up on Oregon television, addressing the camera directly to say "With Jeff Merkley in the U.S. Senate, we can get our country back on track." The spot was the first Obama has done for another candidate since endorsing Bill Foster in a House special election in Illinois last February.
In Oregon, the need for attention "down the ballot" was acute. The May 20 mail-in primary gave Obama a thumping victory over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton but held ominous implications for Merkley: On the Democratic side, more than 90,000 ballots came back with no choice ticked in the Senate race.
"When you vote, don't stop at the top," a new TV spot counsels first-time voters, one of a flurry of new ads pointing out that Merkley is the Democrat in the race. "Give Obama the team he needs."
The spots reflect the concerns of some Oregon Democrats that Smith's contortions are proving effective. If the telegenic heir to a frozen-food fortune succeeds in melding his message to Obama's through their common appeal for bipartisan cooperation, ticket-splitters could make up the gap in new registrations.
"It isn't about politics," Smith said, straight-faced, at a press conference last week. "It's about presenting what honestly exists."
Smith, looking the part of a country club Republican in a blue blazer and bright yellow sweater vest, addressed reporters from a lectern labeled "Democrats for Smith." Two of the 22 registered Democrats flanking him sported Obama pins.
"The problems that confront us, no party can solve on its own," the candidate said.
Smith's claim of partnership with Obama appears thin. The Republican added his name to the list of co-sponsors on a bill the Illinois Democrat wrote requiring more fuel-efficient cars. Critics point out that Smith cast earlier votes against the same requirement.
"His record is so out of sync with Oregon," Merkley said.
But Smith does have lunch weekly and appears frequently in town halls with Oregon's senior senator, Ron Wyden, the state's most popular politician and a Democrat. "It's a question of finding common ground, and Senator Smith, my friend, my partner, always meets me halfway," Wyden says in archival footage the Smith campaign has turned into another television ad.
A Portland television station reported receiving calls from viewers wondering whether Wyden had endorsed both candidates. But he made it clear he backs only Merkley.
"The obvious intent of the ad is to confuse voters," said Wyden's chief of staff, Josh Kardon, who publicly asked Smith to remove Wyden's image. Smith demurred.
It is far from the most controversial commercial in a race that, but for Smith's embrace of the rival party, would be remembered for its nastiness.
The most notorious spot showed Merkley sloppily eating a hot dog while answering a question from the Republican operative who was filming him about the Russian invasion of Georgia. The words "Need a moment?" appear on-screen.
The spot, made by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, aired so relentlessly that Smith eventually condemned it. His own ads paint Merkley as hard on seniors and soft on rapists.
"There has been so much icky stuff," said Marny Gleboff, a retired librarian in Washington County, a Portland suburb that analysts call pivotal in voting that began last week, when Oregonians received their mail-in ballots. "Why doesn't he just quit being a Republican?"
"I think it stinks," said Judy, a retired utility worker and registered Democrat who said she twice before voted for Smith and who would give only her first name. "I think Smith has just shot himself in the foot, cut his own throat.
"I think if he just laid in the woods and paid attention to his own business, he might be okay."
Merkley has also faced bumps along the path to Nov. 4. The son of a lumber mill worker in rural Oregon, he did stints as a presidential national security fellow at the Pentagon and running Habitat for Humanity in Portland. In Salem, the self-described "policy guy" presided over a new Democratic majority in the state House during its most productive sessions in years.
But he challenged Smith only after more prominent Oregon Democrats declined to run and was nearly beaten by Portland activist Steve Novick in a primary Smith tried to influence by advertising against Merkley.
In the general election, most of the $27 million the two sides have spent on advertising has come from outside groups. One Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spot accuses Smith's frozen-food business of hiring illegal immigrants.
"He voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time," said Merkley, irked by Smith's effort to slipstream Obama.
But some voters say that if Smith survives, it will be thanks to an Oregon tradition Hatfield embodied.
"We cannot get away from the fact that Oregon is benefiting from a conservative Mormon senator and a liberal Jewish senator," said Deborah Burton, head nurse at a Portland hospital, referring to Smith and Wyden, respectively. The registered Democrat said she was at Smith's side last week because of his abiding support on a long list of issues.
"I can't speak for the rest," she said, "but health care is nonstop where it needs to be."
LOAD-DATE: October 28, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Jim Craven -- Medford Mail Tribune Via Associated Press; Sen. Gordon Smith (R), a two-term moderate, points at opponent Jeff Merkley (D) during a lighter moment in their second debate in Medford. Voters' enthusiasm for Obama has translated to a swell in Democratic voter registrations. Recently, amid concerns that Smith's embrace of Obama was working, the nominee has appeared in ads for Merkley.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
October 28, 2008 Tuesday
Regional Edition
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A06
ATTACK ON OBAMA POLICY
McCain Team Seizes On Syria Strike
John McCain's campaign said Monday that the successful U.S. strike against a terrorist target in Syria would not have happened if Barack Obama had been president.
In a sharply worded e-mail, McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb said: "If Barack Obama had his way, U.S. forces would not have been in a position to launch this strike. So does Barack Obama support this action -- an action that would not even have been possible if his policies had been implemented?"
The U.S. military reported killing or wounding a terrorist leader and killing several other men near Syria's border with Iraq on Sunday.
McCain's statement also raised again Obama's willingness to meet with adversarial foreign leaders and the decision of one of Obama's foreign policy advisers to travel to Syria for meetings with its government.
In the statement, Goldfarb said: "Barack Obama has pledged to meet personally and unconditionally with Syria's leaders during his first year in office. While John McCain has been demanding that Syria do more to crack down on terrorists moving from its territory into Iraq, Barack Obama allowed one of his closest foreign policy advisers to travel to Syria for discussions with the leaders of that rogue regime."
The Obama campaign said that adviser, Daniel Kurtzer, President Bush's former ambassador to Israel, did not represent the Democrat on that trip. It also noted that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met in New York last month with Syria's foreign minister, a meeting that, according to Syrian state media, was requested by Rice.
-- Michael D. Shear
PRAIRIE BATTLEGROUND
Republicans to Start Advertising in Montana
The Republican National Committee will begin running television ads in Montana beginning on Wednesday, a sign of how heavily the playing field is tilted against the GOP with just eight days left in the presidential campaign.
Montana has been a Republican stronghold for years at the presidential level. President Bush carried it with 59 percent in 2004 and 58 percent four years earlier. Bill Clinton carried Montana when he first ran for president in 1992 -- but that was a year when Ross Perot took 26 percent of the vote.
Barack Obama has been advertising steadily in Montana for the past few months, and John McCain and the RNC had seemed content to let the Illinois senator have the airwaves to himself.
But recent polling shows that Obama is well within range of McCain -- perhaps prompting the RNC's decision to begin advertising.
-- Chris Cillizza
BILINGUAL APPEAL
Obama's Half-Hour Ad To Air in Spanish, Too
Barack Obama's campaign will air a Spanish-language version of its 30-minute infomercial Wednesday night on Univision, the highest-rated Spanish-language television network in the United States.
"Barack Obama: Historias Americanas," or "Barack Obama: American Stories," will air at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time (7 p.m. Central and Mountain time), the same time the English-language version airs on CBS, Fox and NBC.
Miami Mayor Manny Diaz (D) announced the arrangement in a conference call with reporters. "The ad is going to highlight real American stories from across the nation," Diaz said. "This ad buy is historical. The fact that it will air on Univision is testament to the campaign's outreach to the Hispanic community."
The campaign also announced that it will continue to air three Spanish-language ads through Election Day: an ad about the senator's education proposals, called "Oportunidad," which is already on the air; an ad called "Por Encima," which delivers Obama's "closing arguments" and desire to "rise above" attacks made by Republicans and the McCain campaign; and a two-minute direct-to-camera message delivered by Obama in Spanish only, a first for any presidential candidate.
That ad, "Sueño Americano," or "American Dream," is aimed at voters in Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia, the first time the campaign will air Spanish-language television advertising targeting Old Dominion Latinos. The ads will air in the D.C. market, which includes Northern Virginia.
In response to the direct-to-camera ad, the McCain campaign issued a statement by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.): "This election is about more than beautiful words, it's about who decides how your money is spent, who chooses your doctor, and our standing around the world."
-- Ed O'Keefe
LOAD-DATE: October 28, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post; John McCain at a rally in Dayton, Ohio. Under a President Obama, a McCain aide said, "U.S. forces would not have been in a position" to strike in Syria.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
October 28, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
ABC Jumps Too Late On Obama's 'Buy'
ABC finally offered Barack Obama's camp the 8 p.m. half-hour in its Wednesday lineup for his campaign-related program -- which will air at that time on the other major broadcast networks.
But, in an ironic twist, the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign passed on ABC's offer, saying it has allocated the funds elsewhere.
"We were in discussion with the Obama campaign and had offered them the half-hour, but at this point that's not happening and 'Pushing Daisies' will air in its regular time slot," an ABC spokesman told The TV Column yesterday. ABC already has begun airing ads telling viewers, "Wednesday you have a choice -- get political with the other networks or" watch a new episode of "Pushing Daisies" at 8 p.m.
More then two weeks ago, Obama's campaign approached the broadcast networks about purchasing the first half-hour of tomorrow's prime time -- a highly unusual, and relatively expensive, buy for a candidate -- to make what navel-gazers are now calling his "closing argument" to voters in re why he should be elected president.
CBS and NBC were the first to agree to sell Obama's camp the program time, at around $1 million each.
Fox followed days later, after Major League Baseball agreed to postpone the first pitch of Game 6 of the World Series by about 15 minutes to enable the network to join CBS and NBC, and its cable network, MSNBC, in running Obama's 30-minute message just six days before the election. Fox agreed to air the Obama "program" at 8 in the Eastern and Central time zones, and after the game on the West Coast. Fox is contractually obligated to carry a Game 6 tomorrow, should the series come to that. Otherwise, the network had nothing to lose by airing Obama programming in the time slot, given that its World Series fallback plan is always "Some Rerun."
That left ABC as the only major broadcast network that had not sold that half-hour to the Obama campaign.
ABC, which has spent the gross national product of a Third World country trying to relaunch its three struggling Wednesday sophomore dramas, originally offered to sell Obama's campaign other time slots on other nights. That way it wouldn't have to preempt one of its hour-long shows to make room for Obama's 30-minute telecast.
But the Obama camp passed, hoping to create what's called a "roadblock" across broadcast TV.
A viewing roadblock occurs when all the broadcast networks air the same program simultaneously. The most notable roadblock may be the celebrity-studded two-hour "America: A Tribute to Heroes" fundraiser for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which was telecast simultaneously on not only the broadcast networks but many cable networks, as well.
ABC execs finally decided to slide their entire prime-time lineup to make space for the Obama buy, which involved discussions with affiliate stations. But "by the time ABC got back to us, our plans were already set," an Obama campaign rep told The TV Column.
Speaking thereof, Nielsen Media Research just posted an updated analysis of presidential campaign advertising in the seven key swing states: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. And, not surprisingly, Obama's advertising in those states continues to surpass the number of ad units run by his opponent, John McCain.
In those states, Obama placed 155 percent more ad units (62,022 vs. 24,273) than McCain between Oct. 6 and 26, Nielsen reports. Obama's advertising continues to be heaviest in Florida. He ran 18,909 ads there in the same time frame, outpacing McCain's 5,702 ads by 232 percent, Nielsen added. The data include national and local spots seen in these states, as well as syndicated advertising but do not include local cable ads.
Yesterday afternoon, Obama's half-hour "program" was fed to the networks that will carry it at 8 p.m. tomorrow.
Political observers were calling the speech Obama delivered yesterday in Ohio the template for tomorrow's time-buy address. In the speech, Obama told his audience: "In one week we can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo. In one week, we can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history. That's what's at stake. That's what we're fighting for. And, if in this last week, you will knock on some doors for me, and make some calls for me, and talk to your neighbors, and convince your friends; if you will stand with me and fight with me and give me your vote, then I promise you this -- we will . . . not just win this election, but together we will change this country and we will change the world."
Obama also told the packed house at the Canton Civic Center that "all of us must do our part as parents to turn off the television and read to our children and take responsibility for providing the love and guidance they need."
LOAD-DATE: October 28, 2008
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Obama debuts 'closing' speech;
Vows to help middle class
BYLINE: By S.A. Miller, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. Barack Obama chose this critical swing state to introduce Monday his "closing argument" for the final week of the campaign - a 30-minute populist stump speech promising economic deliverance for middle-class America - before heading to Pennsylvania to block a push by Republican Sen. John McCain to turn the tide of the election.
The Obama campaign insisted the stops Monday in Pittsburgh and Tuesday in the Philadelphia suburbs were not a deviation from its end-game strategy, but Pennsylvania is the first Democrat-leaning battleground state Mr. Obama has visited in more than three weeks. His personal appearances lately have been concentrated in several states that backed President Bush in 2004 but are tipping to the Democrat this year.
Mr. Obama consistently scores a double-digit lead in polls in Pennsylvania, which hasn't voted Republican in a presidential election since 1988, but the McCain campaign identified the state as its best chance for an upset and has poured in resources.
"We are not taking any vote for granted in any state and that includes Pennsylvania," Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. "We always thought it would be a close race and ... we are fighting
like we are five points down until November 4"
In the speech, he summed up his promise to bring change to Washington politics and to the country, a stance he said that contrasted with the favor-the-wealthy policies of Mr. McCain.
"In one week, you can turn the page on policies that have put the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street before the hard work and sacrifice of folks on Main Street," Mr. Obama told a rally of about 4,900 people at the Canton Civic Center Arena.
"In one week, you can choose policies that invest in our middle class, create new jobs, and grow this economy from the bottom up so that everyone has a chance to succeed - from the CEO to the secretary and the janitor; from the factory owner, to the men and women who work on its floor," the Illinois senator said. "In one week, you can put an end to the politics that would divide a nation just to win an election; that tries to pit region against region, city against town, Republican against Democrat; that asks us to fear at a time when we need hope."
Hearkening back to themes from early in his political rise, he called for the restoration of hope as he did in his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention that introduced him to the nation and he vowed to end the war in Iraq, the stance that first propelled his presidential campaign nearly two years ago.
He shaped the speech to reinforce rebuttals to Mr. McCain's criticism the Obama tax plan promotes a socialist agenda.
Mr. McCain, an Arizona senator, has hammered the socialist charge since Mr. Obama told Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio plumber worried about higher taxes if he buys a plumbing business, that "when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Mr. McCain and vice- presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin mention "Joe the Plumber" often on the stump and a new TV ad features a series of voters saying, "I'm Joe the Plumber."
In Canton, Mr. Obama honed his response to two sentences defending a tax plan he says gives tax cuts to 95 percent of working Americans and raises taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year.
"John McCain called it 'socialism.' I call it opportunity and there is nothing more American than that," he said.
LOAD-DATE: October 28, 2008
GRAPHIC: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama speaks in Canton, Ohio, on Monday. Mr. Obama promised financial help for middle-class Americans as part of his end-game strategy. [Photo by Associated Press]
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Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 27, 2008 Monday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Obama breaks the bank on campaign financing
The public financing system has struggled to maintain its relevance in the presidential campaign. During the primaries, John Edwards was the only significant candidate to rely on public matching grants. In the general election, Democrat Barack Obama has forged an Internet fundraising phenomenon that has made public financing virtually obsolete.
Obama brought in a record-breaking $150 million last month, lifting his total to $605 million. With a month left, he is likely to double what George W. Bush raised in 2004. The Democrat has used Internet sites and e-mail appeals to attract 3.1 million donors.
Obama's September haul is twice the $84 million that Republican John McCain received in public financing to cover his expenses for the final two months of the campaign.
Even counting the $66 million raised by the Republican National Committee, McCain is being outspent in ad campaigns in key battleground states, including Virginia.
McCain has made frequent and ominous references to the Watergate scandal, which precipitated the creation of the public financing reforms. He notes that Obama is the first major-party candidate to opt out of public funding for the general election since the law was passed. The Wall Street Journal reported that Obama enjoys the largest money advantage since Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern in 1972.
And yet democracy survives and, in fact, appears to be quite hale and rosy-cheeked. The post-Watergate reforms were adopted to reduce the influence of wealthy donors and special interests on political leaders. For three decades, the system has served its purpose.
Big Money has not re-asserted its dominance in 2008. Rather, it has been counter-balanced by millions of pint-sized donors, many of whom have never before given to a political candidate.
With or without Obama's Midas touch, public financing was facing serious challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has been decidedly unsympathetic to government regulation of campaign money. Sensing an opportunity, special-interest groups have been organizing legal challenges that are working their way through lower courts.
While it is clear public financing in its current form cannot survive, it would be foolish to roll back all government oversight. Instead, the next president and Congress must revisit campaign finance laws with the goal of creating a more open and realistic regulatory system.
That system should retain limits on contributions by individuals, corporations and unions. The relevance of those laws may be less obvious this year, but they remain crucial to good government. While Obama may be less reliant on large donors, he is still receiving five-figure checks from a small group of powerful people. A fundraising group he shares with the Democratic National Committee last month collected checks of $25,000 or more from more than 600 individuals, including executives from telecommunications and high-tech firms.
On the other end of the giving spectrum, Congress should revise disclosure laws to require greater transparency for gifts of less than $200. Such small donations, now exempt from reporting laws, account for one-third of Obama's money.
Overall, the sweeping changes in campaign financing this year have been positive, but they should be viewed as an invitation to make our laws better rather than an excuse to eliminate them altogether.
LOAD-DATE: October 27, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 27, 2008 Monday
Suburban Edition
For GOP, Some Good News at Last -- on the Gubernatorial Front
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
The 2008 election could be the worst in a generation for Republicans, with the White House slipping away and heavy losses predicted in the Senate and the House.
Looking for a bright spot? Look no further than two governor's races, in Washington state and North Carolina.
In each, the Republican candidates have successfully snatched the "change" mantle from the Democratic candidates, and polls show both states are the truest of tossups.
In Washington, former state senator Dino Rossi (R) is back for a rematch against Gov. Christine Gregoire (D), to whom he lost by 129 votes after a series of contested recounts in 2004. The race has been tied since the Republican announced his second candidacy, and strategists on both sides acknowledge that it could go either way with a week remaining before the vote.
Working in Rossi's favor is Gregoire's long résumé in politics -- three terms as state attorney general before being elected governor, disadvantages in this year's hostile climate -- and some sense of buyer's remorse among the Washington state electorate. Working for Gregoire is the strong Democratic wind in the state and the power of incumbency.
In North Carolina, the departure of Democratic Gov. Mike Easley, term-limited out of office, seemed to open the door for his lieutenant governor, Bev Perdue, to step into the governor's mansion.
But Republicans smartly nominated Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a business-minded, pragmatic politician who has successfully painted Perdue as a defender of the status quo.
A recent Civitas Institute poll showed Perdue and McCrory knotted at 43 percent, with the Libertarian candidate receiving 2 percent.
Although Republicans could be on the ascent in Washington and North Carolina, not all the news on the gubernatorial front is good. In Missouri, Attorney General Jay Nixon (D) is swamping Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R) in the open seat race to replace retiring Republican Gov. Matt Blunt.
Bachmann Digs Big Hole for Herself
The electoral saga of Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) continues.
Bachmann, a freshman Republican seen as close to a shoo-in for reelection just 10 days ago, now finds herself struggling for her political life -- all because of an inexplicable decision.
That decision? To appear on national television -- MSNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews, to be specific -- and suggest that Sen. Barack Obama holds "anti-American" views.
Whoops. In the immediate aftermath of Bachmann's comments, former Blaine mayor Elwyn Tinklenberg, whose campaign seemed close to finished before the controversy, received a massive influx of donations, to the tune of more than $1.5 million. (That sum, raised in a single week, is more than what any other Democratic challenger has raised in a fundraising quarter in the entire two-year election cycle.)
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee began banging on Bachmann with $1 million worth of ads. The National Republican Congressional Committee, rapidly running out of fingers to plug the leaks that have sprung up of late nationwide, canceled its ad buy, leaving Bachmann to fend for herself.
"Some candidates, like Congresswoman Bachmann, are sitting on more than $1 million cash on hand in districts that President Bush won in 2004 by double digits," wrote Karen Hanretty, communications director for the NRCC, in a memo to reporters explaining the committee's decision.
Backed into a corner, Bachmann did what comes naturally to imperiled politicians: apologize (sort of).
On Friday, Bachmann launched an ad in which she only obliquely references the "Hardball" hoopla. "I may not always get my words right, but I know my heart is right because my heart is for you," Bachmann says in the commercial.
That semi-sorry may be too little, too late, according to a new poll conducted for Minneapolis Public Radio that showed Bachmann at 45 percent and Tinklenberg at 43 percent. In the survey, roughly four in 10 voters in the suburban 6th District said Bachmann's comments made them less likely to support her Nov. 4, compared with 8 percent who said the remarks made them more likely to back the incumbent.
Home State Advantage Slipping?
Is Arizona, the home state of Sen. John McCain, in play at the presidential level on Nov. 4?
A new poll conducted by two pollsters for Project New West, a Democratic strategy group, showed McCain with a 48 percent to 44 percent edge, well within the survey's margin of error. In the last poll conducted for New West in the state, in mid-September, McCain held a 14-point edge.
The good news for McCain is that the most recent New West poll shows the race to be far closer than other surveys conducted in Arizona.
Pollster.com's average of polling conducted in the state puts McCain at 48.9 percent and Sen. Barack Obama at 39.1 percent.
And, neither campaign has advertised in the Grand Canyon State, a sign that Arizona and its 10 electoral votes are not part of Obama's efforts to expand the playing field next week. Arizona went for President Bush by 11 points in 2004; he had won by a narrower six-point margin in 2000.
McCain doesn't seem to be in danger of following in the footsteps of Vice President Al Gore. Gore, who had represented Tennessee in the House and Senate for better than two decades, lost the Volunteer State to Bush by a four-point margin, 51 percent to 47 percent. Had Gore carried his home state -- and its 11 electoral votes -- he would have been elected president.
Eight days: After months of waiting, Election Day is almost here. Will it be an early night for political junkies?
36 days: If no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote on Nov. 4 in the U.S. Senate race in Georgia, the battle for a filibuster-proof Democratic majority could extend all the way into an early December runoff. National Democrats have poured money into the state of late under the belief that Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) can be beaten, either on Nov. 4 or Dec. 2.
LOAD-DATE: October 27, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Gerry Broome -- Associated Press
IMAGE; By Ted S. Warren -- Associated Press; Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, left, and former state senator Dino Rossi might offer Republicans some cheer, with the governor's races in North Carolina and Washington state running neck and neck. A recent poll showed McCrory and his Democratic challenger tied at 43 percent. In Washington state, where Rossi is battling the Democratic incumbent, strategists on both sides say that the contest could go either way.
IMAGE
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Big Labor power grab;
Workers deserve secret ballot
BYLINE: By Barbara Comstock, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
As Americans are focused on the economy, an economic issue of note that has not gotten enough attention is how dramatically the rights of employees in the workplace may change depending upon the presidential and Senate races this year. Support for the woefully misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is a key issue of difference in the elections.
EFCA is an extreme measure that would strip employees of their right to secret ballot in union elections and is so radical that even liberal icon George McGovern has called it "a disturbing and undemocratic overreach." In a recent ad, Mr. McGovern lamented that "today's union leaders are turning their backs on democratic workplace elections." Surprisingly, this issue puts Barack Obama and Senate Democratic candidates to the left of Mr. McGovern.
Under this bill, Big Labor bosses estimate that their winning percentages on union votes would accelerate to 75 percent to 80 percent instead of the current 55 percent. With union dues ranging from $300 to $600 a year or more, passage of this measure would bring them far more than the $400 million they are investing in elections this year. It's easy to see why organized labor is willing to make this investment, since union membership has decreased to only 12 percent of the American workforce and is only 7 percent in the private sector.
But what will this mean in the workplace and what will it mean to the economy? First of all, EFCA would make it easier for Big Labor to impose hefty union dues on an already strapped workforce, and would feather the nests of big union bosses on the backs of hardworking Americans. Union organizers could solicit signatures on cards from workers, and when they get a bare majority, the employer would have to recognize the union. Instead of a private election overseen by an impartial federal board, union organizers would simply be able to provide a mere majority of cards - the debate would be over, no elections would be held and the secret-ballot process would be eliminated. If workers refused to sign a card, they could be repeatedly asked to change their minds by union organizers at any time or any place.
Regardless of one's feelings about unions, the secret ballot should be sacred. This bill ends that principle. And the compulsory arbitration process in the bill would put government bureaucrats in charge of negotiating terms of employment for an automatic two years if an agreement were not reached after 120 days. This would be the most radical change in labor law since the 1930s.
The law could essentially nationalize the Michigan model of the economy with Big Labor in charge. Union-saturated states like Michigan have the highest unemployment rates in the country. Michigan, at 8.9 percent, is over 40 percent above the national average.
European countries that are highly unionized have experienced double-digit inflation for years. That is why European countries like Germany and France are moving away from that model and moving toward the U.S. model. Why would we turn toward a failed model that Europe has, through experience, now rejected?
Mr. Obama is an enthusiastic supporter of this bill, having voted for it in 2007 and promised Big Labor bosses that he would sign this measure into law. It could very well be one of the first measures taken up by the next Congress as payback to the labor bosses. Mr. McCain voted against the bill and has vowed to veto it. Even though the right to protect the secret vote should not be a partisan issue, all Democratic Senate candidates support this top priority of unions, while Republican Senate candidates are opposed.
As is too often the case with Congress, the best explanation for the support for this bill is to "follow the money." Big Labor bosses are at the top for special-interest funding of the presidential and competitive Senate races this year and this is their No. 1 legislative priority. The $400 million-plus they are investing in this election is designed to get a Senate that will pass the bill and a president who will sign it. (They already have enough House votes.) But the secret ballot should not be for sale at any price.
This bill is about whether or not employees will maintain the fundamental American and democratic right to a secret ballot. That right allows workers to have a say in how their workplace will meet the challenges of the current economy. In these tumultuous economic times, workers need to have their voices heard, not hijacked by Big Labor special interests.
When we vote on Nov. 4 for president and other federal offices, we will do so with a secret ballot. American workers deserve no less.
Barbara Comstock is a founding partner in Corallo Comstock Inc. and is working with the Workforce Fairness Institute.
LOAD-DATE: October 27, 2008
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'Obama: The Feel-Good Blockbuster of the Election Season!'
BYLINE: By Andrew Breitbart, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; BIG HOLLYWOOD; A04
If on the evening of Nov. 4, joyous news anchors finally get to declare Sen. Barack Obama the president-elect of the United States, Michael Barone's county-by-county postmortem will matter less in assessing the GOP's grand old problems than the analysis provided by Ad Age and Daily Variety - industry trade papers better suited to explain how global brand-making and multimedia magic trumped very serious issues this electoral go-around.
The making of the Barack Obama franchise far exceeded the skill set of Washington's best. In fact, the recipe for Mr. Obama's global popularity can be attributed less to political minds and chance than to the enduring power of Hollywood.
Oprah Winfrey, who in 2005 tapped Mr. Obama as her pet political project, gets executive producer credit for this elaborate production, which has exceeded $700 million.
With its emphasis on star power, the Obama campaign from Day One emphasized the candidate's perfectly cut presidential presence.
From its skillful editing to its out-of-control budget and its relentless marketing, Mr. Obama's team played a different game at a different level than Sen. John McCain and his traditionalist staff.
For starters, top minds in Washington assessed an inexperienced ultraliberal of partial African heritage with the name Barack Hussein Obama as a hard sell.
But in his look, tone and temperament, Mr. Obama resembles some of the top domestic and foreign box-office titans of our time.
Studio executives know that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Will Smith and Denzel Washington fill theater seats. The latter two ranked second and fifth, respectively, in the 2007 Quigley Poll - an annual survey of motion picture exhibitors ranking the industry's most bankable stars.
Morgan Freeman "Deep Impact" ) ranked second in a recent Moviefone.com poll asking which fictional movie president people would most want to lead the United States.
By pretending this strength was in fact a liability - aided and abetted by the mainstream media's politically correct playbook - Mr. Obama, he of a privileged prep school and Ivy League background, gave voters the type of heart-tugging narrative that makes a good movie great.
The unforgettable image from Mr. Obama's Iowa primary win featured an almost all human backdrop of Caucasians, the perfect extras for one of the most important scenes in American history. White America, always told it is institutionally racist, got to make the point that it isn't. And all decent Americans - regardless of party affiliation - felt good.
Much of America rooted for Mr. Obama simply because he is black. Geraldine Ferraro got thrown off the set for saying so.
Hollywood films for years have understood that the majority wants racial reconciliation, and in the Obama candidacy, that was always his greatest promise.
The Obama campaign certainly had some off moments, but only when it went off script "they cling to guns or religion" ). By editing out the nasty aspects of the young candidate's biography - the coke dealer, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, et al. - all that was left was a cinematic "kid defies the odds" tale.
Trained by smooth customer George Clooney, Mr. Obama looked the GQ president even before he appeared on the magazine's cover. Media magnate Jann Wenner handed over Rolling Stone for the better part of a year to give him the same marquee appeal as Brad Pitt.
It didn't hurt that Mr. Obama ran against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primaries and against Mr. McCain in the general election. Youth trumps all in modern media, and Mr. Obama turned the media into fan-mag sycophants who made the youth vs. age juxtaposition painfully apparent in every shared camera shot.
It doesn't take an MIT linguist to point out that "hope" and "change" might as well be code words for "No Country for Old Men."
Mr. Obama's world tour this summer, which culminated with his speech in Berlin, may have caused Op-Ed writers to lament his overconfidence, but no one who lives and dies by Hollywood and the celebrity-crazed media reads papers anymore.
Until the Republican Party commits to enter the media age, the Democrats will continue to grow their massive advantage in future elections.
Enter Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Mr. McCain's greatest gift to America may have been his inadvertent discovery of the only person in American politics who can go up against Mr. Obama's star power.
Come 2012, it'll be "I Am Legend" vs. "Juno" - the blockbuster vs. the sleeper.
* Andrew Breitbart is the founder of the news Web site breitbart.com and is co-author of "Hollywood Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon - the Case Against Celebrity."
LOAD-DATE: October 27, 2008
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Obama jumps on McCain remark about Bush;
RNC links Democrat to Reid, Pelosi
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan and S.A. Miller, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. John McCain, who has been trying to distance himself from President Bush, acknowledged Sunday they "share a common philosophy" - a remark immediately pounced on by Sen. Barack Obama as underscoring what a McCain administration would be like.
"That's right, Colorado. I guess that was John McCain finally giving us a little straight talk and owning up to the fact that he and George Bush actually have a whole lot in common," Mr. Obama told more than 100,000 people at a Sunday rally in Denver's downtown Civic Center Park.
Mr. Obama, who has made tying the unpopular president to Mr. McCain the centerpiece of his campaign, said voters know the "Bush-McCain philosophy" serves up tax breaks to the richest Americans and big corporations that ship jobs overseas and squanders $10 billion a month on the war in Iraq while middle-class families in the United States suffer economic hardship.
In an appearance Sunday on "Meet the Press," Mr. McCain acknowledged that while he and Mr. Bush both subscribe to basic Republican Party tenets, he has repeatedly disagreed with Mr. Bush and other Republicans. He listed campaign finance, global warming, ballooning spending and immigration as issues on which he's fought some in his party.
"I could go down a long list of issues with you. Do I respect President Bush? Of course, I respect him. But I pointed out we were on the wrong track in a whole lot of ways," he said.
But Mr. McCain's claim of common ground with Mr. Bush, as well as the president's casting an early ballot for the Arizona senator, reinforced Mr. Obama's argument that his rival is allied with Bush administration policies that many voters blame for the country's economic turmoil.
"For eight years, we've seen the Bush-McCain philosophy put our country on the wrong track, and we cannot have another four years that look just like the last eight," the Democratic presidential nominee said. "It's time for change in Washington, and that's why I'm running for president of the United States."
The Republican National Committee responded that Mr. Obama shares a common philosophy with the leaders of the Democrat-led Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the Financial Services Committee chairman, who recently advocated raising taxes and cutting defense spending by 25 percent.
"Unlike McCain, Obama has never broken with his party's leadership," RNC spokesman Alex Conant said. "If elected president, it's clear Obama would be little more than a rubber-stamp for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi's tax-and-spend agenda."
Trailing in Iowa and many other key battleground states, Mr. McCain said he is taking his inspiration from the movie "Knute Rockne: All American," which featured Ronald Reagan.
"I feel like Knute Rockne at halftime when he said, 'You go out there and get one for the Gipper,' and, look, those polls have consistently shown me much further behind than we actually are. It all depends on the voter-turnout model," he said.
On the campaign trail in Iowa and Ohio, Mr. McCain stuck to his message of the past week but his close friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, questioned Mr. Obama's fitness to lead the military.
Mr. Graham said Mr. Obama forfeited the respect of the military by not voting on a resolution condemning MoveOn.org's "General Betray Us" ad denouncing Gen. David H. Petraeus, which ran in the New York Times on the eve of the general's testimony on the Iraq war.
"Barack Obama was in the Democratic cloakroom. It would have taken him five seconds to come out and vote," Mr. Graham said at a rally in Cedar Falls, Iowa, attended by about 2,000 people. "He does not deserve to be commander in chief."
He also said Mr. McCain took taxpayer financing for the general election "because it's good for his country not to have it overrun by money," and he questioned Mr. Obama's decision to forgo public financing as a scandal in waiting. "$600 million has been raised, and God knows who from," he said.
Mr. Obama heads Monday to Canton, Ohio, where he is scheduled to deliver a speech billed as a "closing argument" for his presidential bid.
Mr. Obama will tell voters that critical swing state after 21 months on the campaign trail and three debates, Mr. McCain still has not been able to tell the American people "a single major thing he'd do differently from George Bush when it comes to the economy," the Obama campaign said.
According to the Obama campaign, he will tell voters that in a week "they can choose hope over fear, unity over division and the promise of change over the power of the status quo."
* Stephen Dinan traveled with the McCain campaign in Iowa and Ohio. S.A. Miller traveled with the Obama campaign in Colorado.
LOAD-DATE: October 27, 2008
GRAPHIC: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama waves to supporters Sunday at a rally in Denver. Mr. Obama slammed the "Bush-McCain philosophy," saying it serves up tax breaks to the rich. [Photo by Associated Press]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
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BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE POLITICS; A06
Press coverage
"Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass - no, make that shameless support - they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press," journalist Michael S. Malone writes in an opinion piece at abcnews.go.com.
"Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice-presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play. ...
"No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is
the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side - or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del. ...
"Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican
presidential nominee Sen John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer - when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?
"The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber. Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by."
Under the bus
"Political parties are rarely so cold-hearted as to throw their own over the side in pursuit of votes. But that's happening to Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich as the Illinois Democratic Party is using the unpopular governor as a club to defeat a Republican for a key vacant U.S. House seat," John Fund writes at www.opinionjournal.com.
"The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee began spending $1 million this week airing TV ads that link Mr. Blagojevich to Marty Ozinga, the GOP candidate for Congress in the suburban Chicago district being vacated by GOP Rep. Jerry Weller," Mr. Fund said.
" 'Concrete's a dirty business, especially for Republican Marty Ozinga,' the ad's script reads. 'Republican Marty Ozinga and his companies gave 23 grand to Rod Blagojevich,' the ad continues, showing an unflattering picture of Mr. Blagojevich. Mr. Ozinga, the script concludes, is 'the last guy you'd send to clean up Washington.' ...
"Gov Blagojevich, whose approval ratings have sunk to a dismal 13 percent in the wake of the ethical investigations that have linked him to convicted real estate developer Tony Rezko, probably feels more like his own party has just backed up a truck and run over him."
'Ominous stuff'
"I've been thinking this for a while, so I might as well air it here. I honestly never thought we'd see such a thing in our country - not yet anyway - but I sense what's occurring in this election is a recklessness and abandonment of rationality that has preceded the voluntary surrender of liberty and security in other places," conservative pundit Mark R. Levin writes in a blog at National Review Online (www. nationalreview.com).
"I can't help but observe that even some conservatives are caught in the moment as their attempts at explaining their support for Barack Obama are unpersuasive and even illogical. And the pull appears to be rather strong. Ken Adelman, Doug Kmiec, and others, reach for the usual platitudes in explaining themselves but are utterly incoherent. Even non-conservatives with significant public policy and real world experiences, such as Colin Powell and Charles Fried, find Obama alluring but can't explain themselves in an intelligent way," Mr. Levin said.
"There is a cult-like atmosphere around Barack Obama, which his campaign has carefully and successfully fabricated, which concerns me. The messiah complex. Fainting audience members at rallies. Special Obama flags and an Obama presidential seal. A graphic with the portrayal of the globe and Obama's name on it, which adorns everything from Obama's plane to his street literature. Young schoolchildren singing songs praising Obama. Teenagers wearing camouflage outfits and marching in military order chanting Obama's name and the professions he is going to open to them. An Obama world tour, culminating in a speech in Berlin where Obama proclaims we are all citizens of the world. I dare say, this is ominous stuff."
Free speech
Shippensburg University and a religious student group have settled a lawsuit concerning free-speech rights, the Associated Press reports.
The Christian Fellowship of Shippensburg University asserted in a federal lawsuit filed in May that it had been threatened with being shut down because it requires members to be Christians and its president to be a man.
The group said the state-owned university in Pennsylvania violated a 2004 settlement of a separate lawsuit over the school's student code of conduct.
In the 2004 case, a civil liberties group sued the university over a student code barring "acts of intolerance" including racist, sexist and anti-gay speech. University officials said they would revise the code after a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction barring the enforcement of that provision.
The Washington-based Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom said the latest lawsuit stemmed from Christian Fellowship's expulsion from campus by the student senate in February in a dispute over its membership and leadership requirements.
The group, which has been recognized by the university since the early 1970s, was later told it could resume operations, but said it feared the possibility of further sanctions.
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washington times.com.
LOAD-DATE: October 27, 2008
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 26, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT;
Time for McCain
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. E-2
The next president of the United States will face a stunning list of problems: two wars that must be won; a financial system in need of fixes that prevent the excesses of recent years without squelching growth and innovation; an economy that has almost certainly sunk into a recession likely to spread around the globe; a health care system that is too expensive and leaves too many uninsured; a large and growing federal budget deficit; Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs marching relentlessly toward bankruptcy; nuclear weapons in North Korea and Pakistan - and an aggressive program to build them in Iran; wasteful spending in Washington; genocide in Darfur; assertive dictatorships in Moscow and Beijing; and an existential threat from Islamic terrorists that seems to be fading dangerously from the national consciousness.
And those are simply the challenges we know about today. If other administrations - including George W. Bush's - have taught us anything, it is that the most serious troubles are often unanticipated.
Nearly every election lays claim as the most important in history. This one is not. But it may rank near the top of the list. (The Editorial staff has been in frequent contact with both campaigns).
The success of Sen. Barack Obama's candidacy is a testament to many of the values America holds most dear: opportunity for all, a willingness to embrace and elevate determined talent regardless of race, creed, gender, or ethnicity. He is truly a son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s second American Revolution. We salute the Illinois senator's accomplishment and share most of our countrymen's pride in his quest to win the nation's highest office. It reflects well America's remarkable progress over the past half century.
* * *
We believe that Obama is qualified by temperament to serve as president, though his limited experience does give pause. We believe he possesses the depth and the eloquence to inspire his fellow citizens and to spread America's message of liberty and freedom abroad.
But we are troubled by many of his policy positions. His devotion to higher taxes on work, capital, innovation, and risk-taking seem particularly dangerous during a year in which the U.S. economy is struggling. His tepid, on-again-off-again support for free trade is equally frightening. He seems not to understand the forces that created the Great Depression nearly eight decades ago - at a moment when that understanding is absolutely essential.
We are also discomfited by Obama's almost reflexive belief that government solutions are the best - perhaps even the only - solutions to most problems. His health care proposals lay the groundwork for a nationalized health system by putting government care in competition with the private sector. Guess who wins that one? One of his campaign's low points came when it grossly distorted John McCain's proposals to create a more efficient and effective health system driven by empowered patients and physicians. It's a great mystery why the McCain campaign and the media failed to aggressively counter these distortions. Or to emphasize that many of Obama's "tax cuts" are actually federal handouts to people who do not pay income taxes. The Democrat is proposing an end to "the end of welfare as we know it" by converting the Internal Revenue Service into an agency that collects money from people who pay income taxes in order to send checks to those who do not.
In a phone interview with a member of The Times-Dispatch Editorial staff Thursday, McCain emphasized his belief that "redistribution of wealth doesn't work, hasn't worked, and won't work."
The Arizona senator also chided his opponent for "going back on his word" by refusing federal campaign funding after promising to accept it "back when he was an underdog."
An Obama presidency will undoubtedly move the federal judiciary far to the left, with many unpleasant implications for personal liberty, the sanctity of life, and small "r" republicanism.
Most significantly, Obama's reluctance to acknowledge improvements on the ground in Iraq - a result of both the troop surge he opposed and an improved anti-insurgency strategy - calls into question his judgment, and emphasizes that his character remains untested.
* * *
John McCain is hardly an orthodox Republican on economic matters. But he does understand the fundamentals - to use a word that got the Arizona senator in trouble a few weeks ago with the chattering class - that drive dynamic free-market growth. He knows that American companies will find it difficult to compete when they must pay the second-highest tax rate in the developed world. So he is proposing a necessary - but politically dangerous - cut in the corporate tax rate.
He also understands that low taxes are not the cause of today's economic tribulations - and has steadfastly refused to raise taxes on anyone while the economy struggles. He knows that it is businesses large and small that produce wealth and create jobs. And McCain recognizes that removing the secret ballot from union organizing elections and denying free trade with Colombia - the strongest U.S. ally in Latin America - to curry favor with Big Labor is not only economic folly but morally indefensible.
McCain seeks sensible, incremental changes to make health care more available and more affordable, while avoiding Obama's magical claims about reducing every American's health insurance premiums by $2,500 - as if it were that easy. McCain begins by ending the unfair system that allows employees to buy insurance tax-free while the self-employed receive no tax benefits. Despite commercials and stories to the contrary, McCain supports a health care credit that will lower the tax bills for almost all Americans, except those with gold-plated policies typically worth $15,000 or more. On this issue, the Arizona senator has suffered unfairly because his plan is nuanced and realistic while his opponent's relies on demagogy and outlandish promises. McCain told The Times-Dispatch that his health plan would cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans.
Among the bipartisan spendthrifts who populate Congress, few if any can match McCain's record in opposing out-of-control spending. It's one of the main reasons the Bush administration and many fellow Republicans have frequently considered McCain a pain in the pork barrel.
The addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the ticket has been a mixed blessing. She has electrified the Republican base and demonstrated an exceptional talent for retail politics. She boasts a strong record so far as governor. But it is a short record. At times, Palin's limited experience has shown, raising questions about her mastery of some complex issues. Her treatment by the press has been deplorable. But that does not mean all of the doubts about her readiness are misplaced. Still, we suspect she has a bright future in national politics, particularly after she has broadened her experience, perhaps as vice president. She seems to be a quick study.
Democrat Joe Biden has made himself into a laughingstock. In his interview with The Times-Dispatch, McCain clearly enjoyed recounting Biden's recent guarantee that a President Obama would face a major international crisis within six months of taking office. "It's one of the most remarkable statements I've heard in American politics.... It's about Joe Biden riding to the rescue," McCain said. Obama has publicly dismissed his running mate's comments as "rhetorical flourishes." McCain's response: "He didn't know Joe Biden was capable of rhetorical flourishes? I could have told him that!"
* * *
Experience - particularly in international and military affairs - is a significant issue at the top of the tickets. These Editorial Pages have long maintained that national security ranks as the most important responsibility of any American president. And by this measure, John McCain is the clear and unambiguous choice in 2008. The world remains a very dangerous place. McCain has demonstrated the courage and sound judgment needed to protect the free people of this nation - and assist those fighting for freedom around the world.
He sacrificed more than five years of his life for his country - suffering as a prisoner of war in ways that most of us cannot imagine. As a political leader, McCain has continued to exhibit bravery and good sense. He spoke loudly - again to the dismay of the Bush administration - about the need for more troops and a new strategy in Iraq, a deeply unpopular stance that nearly destroyed his presidential aspirations. We know now that McCain was right - and that his principled criticism was essential to avoiding defeat in Iraq.
When Russia invaded Georgia earlier this year, McCain immediately demonstrated a firm grasp of the risks and the actions needed to counter them - while Obama dithered. Unlike the junior senator from Illinois, McCain will face no learning curve in the Oval Office. He understands the complexities of the Middle East, the dangers posed by Islamic jihadists, the strengths and the limits of the American military. He knows, from profound personal experience, all about the power of American liberty and ideals, and about the determination - and calculation - required to defend them.
* * *
We urge Virginians - who will play a crucial role in the national decision for the first time in more than a generation - to vote for John McCain for president. He is the right man for our perilous times.
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
EDITORIAL: Time for McCain
BYLINE: Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
Oct. 26--The next president of the United States will face a stunning list of problems: two wars that must be won; a financial system in need of fixes that prevent the excesses of recent years without squelching growth and innovation; an economy that has almost certainly sunk into a recession likely to spread around the globe; a health care system that is too expensive and leaves too many uninsured; a large and growing federal budget deficit; Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs marching relentlessly toward bankruptcy; nuclear weapons in North Korea and Pakistan -- and an aggressive program to build them in Iran; wasteful spending in Washington; genocide in Darfur; assertive dictatorships in Moscow and Beijing; and an existential threat from Islamic terrorists that seems to be fading dangerously from the national consciousness.
And those are simply the challenges we know about today. If other administrations -- including George W. Bush's -- have taught us anything, it is that the most serious troubles are often unanticipated.
Nearly every election lays claim as the most important in history. This one is not. But it may rank near the top of the list. (The Editorial staff has been in frequent contact with both campaigns).
The success of Sen. Barack Obama's candidacy is a testament to many of the values America holds most dear: opportunity for all, a willingness to embrace and elevate determined talent regardless of race, creed, gender, or ethnicity. He is truly a son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s second American Revolution. We salute the Illinois senator's accomplishment and share most of our countrymen's pride in his quest to win the nation's highest office. It reflects well America's remarkable progress over the past half century.
We believe that Obama is qualified by temperament to serve as president, though his limited experience does give pause. We believe he possesses the depth and the eloquence to inspire his fellow citizens and to spread America's message of liberty and freedom abroad.
But we are troubled by many of his policy positions. His devotion to higher taxes on work, capital, innovation, and risk-taking seem particularly dangerous during a year in which the U.S. economy is struggling. His tepid, on-again-off-again support for free trade is equally frightening. He seems not to understand the forces that created the Great Depression nearly eight decades ago -- at a moment when that understanding is absolutely essential.
We are also discomfited by Obama's almost reflexive belief that government solutions are the best -- perhaps even the only -- solutions to most problems. His health care proposals lay the groundwork for a nationalized health system by putting government care in competition with the private sector. Guess who wins that one? One of his campaign's low points came when it grossly distorted John McCain's proposals to create a more efficient and effective health system driven by empowered patients and physicians. It's a great mystery why the McCain campaign and the media failed to aggressively counter these distortions. Or to emphasize that many of Obama's "tax cuts" are actually federal handouts to people who do not pay income taxes. The Democrat is proposing an end to "the end of welfare as we know it" by converting the Internal Revenue Service into an agency that collects money from people who pay income taxes in order to send checks to those who do not.
In a phone interview with a member of
The Times-Dispatch Editorial staff Thursday, McCain emphasized his belief that "redistribution of wealth doesn't work, hasn't worked, and won't work."
The Arizona senator also chided his opponent for "going back on his word" by refusing federal campaign funding after promising to accept it "back when he was an underdog."
An Obama presidency will undoubtedly move the federal judiciary far to the left, with many unpleasant implications for personal liberty, the sanctity of life, and small "r" republicanism.
Most significantly, Obama's reluctance to acknowledge improvements on the ground in Iraq -- a result of both the troop surge he opposed and an improved anti-insurgency strategy -- calls into question his judgment, and emphasizes that his character remains untested.
John McCain is hardly an orthodox Republican on economic matters. But he does understand the fundamentals -- to use a word that got the Arizona senator in trouble a few weeks ago with the chattering class -- that drive dynamic free-market growth. He knows that American companies will find it difficult to compete when they must pay the second-highest tax rate in the developed world. So he is proposing a necessary -- but politically dangerous -- cut in the corporate tax rate.
He also understands that low taxes are not the cause of today's economic tribulations -- and has steadfastly refused to raise taxes on anyone while the economy struggles. He knows that it is businesses large and small that produce wealth and create jobs. And McCain recognizes that removing the secret ballot from union organizing elections and denying free trade with Colombia -- the strongest U.S. ally in Latin America -- to curry favor with Big Labor is not only economic folly but morally indefensible.
McCain seeks sensible, incremental changes to make health care more available and more affordable, while avoiding Obama's magical claims about reducing every American's health insurance premiums by $2,500 -- as if it were that easy. McCain begins by ending the unfair system that allows employees to buy insurance tax-free while the self-employed receive no tax benefits. Despite commercials and stories to the contrary, McCain supports a health care credit that will lower the tax bills for almost all Americans, except those with gold-plated policies typically worth $15,000 or more. On this issue, the Arizona senator has suffered unfairly because his plan is nuanced and realistic while his opponent's relies on demagogy and outlandish promises. McCain told
The Times-Dispatch that his health plan would cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans.
Among the bipartisan spendthrifts who populate Congress, few if any can match McCain's record in opposing out-of-control spending. It's one of the main reasons the Bush administration and many fellow Republicans have frequently considered McCain a pain in the pork barrel.
The addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the ticket has been a mixed blessing. She has electrified the Republican base and demonstrated an exceptional talent for retail politics. She boasts a strong record so far as governor. But it is a short record. At times, Palin's limited experience has shown, raising questions about her mastery of some complex issues. Her treatment by the press has been deplorable. But that does not mean all of the doubts about her readiness are misplaced. Still, we suspect she has a bright future in national politics, particularly after she has broadened her experience, perhaps as vice president. She seems to be a quick study.
Democrat Joe Biden has made himself into a laughingstock. In his interview with The Times-Dispatch, McCain clearly enjoyed recounting Biden's recent guarantee that a President Obama would face a major international crisis within six months of taking office. "It's one of the most remarkable statements I've heard in American politics . . . .It's about Joe Biden riding to the rescue," McCain said. Obama has publicly dismissed his running mate's comments as "rhetorical flourishes." McCain's response: "He didn't know Joe Biden was capable of rhetorical flourishes? I could have told him that!"
Experience -- particularly in international and military affairs -- is a significant issue at the top of the tickets. These Editorial Pages have long maintained that national security ranks as the most important responsibility of any American president. And by this measure, John McCain is the clear and unambiguous choice in 2008. The world remains a very dangerous place. McCain has demonstrated the courage and sound judgment needed to protect the free people of this nation -- and assist those fighting for freedom around the world.
He sacrificed more than five years of his life for his country -- suffering as a prisoner of war in ways that most of us cannot imagine. As a political leader, McCain has continued to exhibit bravery and good sense. He spoke loudly -- again to the dismay of the Bush administration -- about the need for more troops and a new strategy in Iraq, a deeply unpopular stance that nearly destroyed his presidential aspirations. We know now that McCain was right -- and that his principled criticism was essential to avoiding defeat in Iraq.
When Russia invaded Georgia earlier this year, McCain immediately demonstrated a firm grasp of the risks and the actions needed to counter them -- while Obama dithered. Unlike the junior senator from Illinois, McCain will face no learning curve in the Oval Office. He understands the complexities of the Middle East, the dangers posed by Islamic jihadists, the strengths and the limits of the American military. He knows, from profound personal experience, all about the power of American liberty and ideals, and about the determination -- and calculation -- required to defend them.
We urge Virginians -- who will play a crucial role in the national decision for the first time in more than a generation -- to vote for John McCain for president. He is the right man for our perilous times.
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081026-RV-EDITORIAL-Time-for-McCain-1026
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 26, 2008 Sunday
Metro Edition
SELECTING THE NEXT PRESIDENT
SECTION: HORIZON EDITORIAL; Pg. 1
Elitist? Who are the Republicans kidding?
. . . For the past eight years, there's been no accountability in the Republican administration, whether it's enforcing environmental laws, banking regulations, the outing of CIA agents, domestic spying, torture or secret prisons. Where is our heart and soul? Our basic sense of decency? . . . These people call Barack Obama an elitist -- a man who was raised by a single mom, earned his scholarships and gave up a Harvard lawyer's salary to help folks whose steel mills had been shut down. These filthy rich, people who can't even remember how many houses they own, call this gifted young man an elitist?
"All he can do is give a good speech," they sneer. Well, the president's real power is in his ability to communicate. Our greatest presidents were great orators, we learned in school. They were "great communicators" who listened closely to their advisers, made an informed decision, then led the nation with their words.
Of course, snake oil salesmen are good yuk-yuksters, too. That's what we've had for the past eight years. Tap-dancing on the portico of the White House while the country falls apart. We need a president who can pronounce the word "nuclear." I know I mispronounce hundreds of words everyday, just as surely as my Friday Night Jamboree dancin' shoes have taps on them. But I'm not running for president.
When Obama explained to some city slickers how us country folk feel about things, he got it right:
We do love our guns. The fence posts at my mother-in-law's house sport more spent lead than staples.
We do love our religion. As a part Cherokee, my church is the mountains themselves. But along Route 221 there's a church every five miles.
And we are pretty darn bitter, from what I hear in the parking lots and shopping lines around the county.
It's time we exercised our independent streak and voted against the trend. The Republicans have run the presidency, the Congress and the courts long enough.
- Don Simmons Jr. is a veteran Southwest Virginia journalist. He now lives in Floyd County.
Look beyond race
. . . I had wanted to believe that racism is rare enough to be a non-issue in this election. Unfortunately, making phone calls on behalf of Barack Obama has, at times, been a chilling dose of reality for me. I have heard harsh, bitter words that I haven't heard in decades.
My hope for people holding racist beliefs is that something will happen in their lives that creates a pathway for their hearts and minds to open. . . .
We must be vigilant, proactive and encourage people to vote by speaking the truth as we know it to be. Racism, which we deeply wish was a thing of the past, is still a force to be reckoned with. . . .
Another hopeful shift is found in the thinking of young people. My sons, working hard for Obama, are stunned when they hear racist comments. Young people seem to be more likely to view race as a non-issue. Typically, they see diversity not as something to fear, but rather as a goal to work toward and embrace. . . .
If you see in Obama a person unique in his ability to lead and unmatched in wise judgment and thoughtful temperament, please consider being as proactive and involved as you are able to be.
- B. Alison Allsbrook is a licensed clinical social worker with a private counseling practice in Roanoke and is active in organizations that promote social justice.
A vote for Obama spells disaster
. . . How is it possible that a man could be friends with and have mentors like Jeremiah Wright, Philip Phleger and William Ayers and no one even questions his judgement? The despicable Louis Farrakhan has even anointed him "Messiah Obama." How comforting. If he were not the Democratic nominee for president, Obama couldn't get a job at Wackenhut Security because of his association with known terrorists and extremists. . . .
And who among us believes Ayers was "just a guy in the neighborhood"? Excuse me but how stupid do you think we are? I really don't care how old you were when the guy was blowing up government offices and the Pentagon, but I do care that you helped raise millions of dollars and funneled it into Ayers' program to radicalize school kids in Chicago and that your candidacy was hatched in his home and that you served on boards with him although he is unrepentant of his actions even today. . . .
Obama and Biden always want to talk about the last eight years. Why don't we talk about the last two years when America voted for "change" by putting the Democrats in charge of both houses of Congress. Two years ago, the stock market was booming, gas prices were in the $2 per gallon range, we had low inflation and low unemployment. The real question is: Are you better off now than you were two years ago, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, who have led this Congress to its lowest ever approval rating -- even lower than the despised George Bush. I am not sure that we, as Americans, can survive any more change like that.
- Don Assaid is the chairman of the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors.
On matters of the economy, McCain has failed
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." -- Albert Einstein
For all those who believe the statement has some thread of truth please consider (McCain's record.) . . .
I ask not rhetorically but with the full force of McCain's economic policy record available for all to review: Is this man, who has been shown to have poor economic judgment, consistently voted for banking deregulation, even after going through the excesses and cost of the savings and loan crisis, the one who you believe will be able to guide us through the next four years?
Now that is insanity.
- Adam Cohen is a resident of Roanoke County.
McCain's goals are singular and personal
In his Sept. 18 commentary, "Maverick is the name," Sam Riley reports that Karl Rove and his Republicans gave the name "Maverick" to presidential candidate John McCain.
But upon reading McCain's books, "Worth Fighting For" and "Faith of My Fathers," one learns that John McCain gave himself that separatist's accolade years ago. So proud of its label, he lays it on his running mate as he takes Sarah Palin to his side. . . .
As a chaplain in McCain's Navy, I have been vitally interested in and very proud of his courage as a shot-down flyer, captured, tortured and thrown injured and untreated into an enemy's horrid prison. Genuine respect and heartfelt camaraderie binds me to this fellow veteran. So it is with much regret that I cannot give him my vote for president.
Reasons being that I have heard him speak, watched him campaign, studied his record in the Senate, observed his choice of a maverick running mate, and I have read another book: Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope."
Whereas McCain's writings point to singular, personal goals, Obama writes of personal experiences to introduce and explain hopes and dreams, not for himself, but for America and all its people.
Over and over again, fascinating, exacting moments in history are personalized for the reader whose mind and heart confirm the authenticity of Obama's mental and moral compass.
So well grounded in the Christian faith, he is not shaken by ultraconservatives, extreme liberals or the dynamics of other religions. So brilliant his memory, so acquainted with America's past, so aware of our nation's present virtues and needs, Obama offers us renewed inspiration and hope. Indeed, with candid confidence he dares to invite us all to believe in the audacity of hope.
- C. Warner Crumb, of Roanoke, is a retired United Methodist clergyman and U.S. Naval Reserve chaplain.
McCain's plans: too risky for Americans
. . . The Washington Post's conservative columnist George Will astutely referred to "Applied McCainism," which he defined as the "visceral judgment by one who is confidently righteous." Will concluded, "the viscera are not the seat of wisdom." While many of presidential nominee John McCain's decisions are "from the gut," his established policy positions are also not from the seat of wisdom. In particular, McCain's use of the banking model as the basis for his Social Security and health care plans is far from wise, as demonstrated by recent events. . . .
Applied McCainism bases Social Security policy on the banking model, disregarding the hard lessons on regulation. . . .
The private accounts for younger Americans that McCain proposes for Social Security place our Social Security retirement savings and our children's life insurance protection on the roulette table. It also endangers the pay-as-you-go Social Security system that allows us to cover today's tab for current retirees' benefits. . . .
McCain's health care plan shifts risk to the middle class and directs wealth elsewhere. McCain wants to effectively raise taxes on employers who provide health insurance to their employees by abolishing the tax exemption employers currently receive. . . .
McCain confidently believes that the fundamentals of his retirement and health security are strong, but like the banking model, McCain's policies shift risk onto the middle class. Whether from the viscera or a more tempered place, playing roulette with our retirement and health security is unwise.
- Gloria N. Eldridge is a senior research associate at Optimal Solutions Group LLC, a policy research firm, and an adjunct professor of political science at George Mason University.
Entitled to take back America
America is at a crossroads. To the left, we have the Democratic Party. To the right, we have the Republican Party. And straight ahead, beyond the challenges of our time, destiny awaits. But to overcome these challenges -- and we will -- we must not forget where we've been and how we got here.
Ever since our forefathers provided us with a powerful plan in the U.S. Constitution, the dynamic evolution of our government has been critical to our survival as a nation. It has made this nation the strongest democracy in the world.
But I am not so sure it remains a democracy anymore. We, the people, are becoming less and less involved with the political process. We're losing faith in our political leadership, and we're losing touch with the increasingly convoluted process, causing people to feel powerless, hopeless and disenfranchised. . . .
There are bright minds in every part of America, working all kinds of jobs, who have the know-how to solve local, state, national and even international issues. Let us put our freedom and talents to good use and solve the problems we are facing. Each person can make a contribution to this process.
- Eric M. Latham graduated from Virginia Tech in 2003 with a degree in communication studies. He is the founder of Vote About America, helping college students realize the power and importance of their involvement in the electoral process.
Don't cave to fear
. . . [B]oth parties are to be chastised for questionable tactics and misleading statements. But there are those in our current election who are deliberately inciting fear on multiple fronts in a desperate attempt to win an election by polarizing and paralyzing our county. Our current economic crises are to a large extent the result of eight years of policies that Sen. John McCain continues to advocate. The "trickle down" concept has not worked for eight years and will not produce any better results in the future. However, while Sen. Barack Obama is trying to discuss possible avenues to lead us out of our economic mess, the Republican candidates are telling us that Obama is not a "real" American. They are willing to sacrifice the unity that this country so desperately needs just to attract a few more votes. . . .
What does the color of a man's skin have to do with his ability to lead this nation? What does an individual's passing acquaintance with someone who may have believed in violence as a means of protest 40 years ago have to do with his ability to propose solutions to our problems? What does the sound of someone's name tell us about a candidate's character? Nothing, nothing and nothing! Yet the Republican candidates want us to believe that these irrelevant points are more important than the global economic and security issues we face. . . .
This great country and its citizens deserve nothing less than a discussion of policy and approaches to dealing with our current crises.
- Joseph Merola is a professor of chemistry and head of the chemistry department at Virginia Tech.
Want to talk guilt by association?
The Republicans are now airing an ad ominous in its tone talking about Barack Obama's judgment because of his relationship with Bill Ayers. Ayers, it is rightly pointed out, was an active member of the Weatherman's radical underground movement of the '60s. The pitch of the ad is to question Obama's judgment when it comes to with whom he chooses to associate. If the information I have gleaned from the Internet is accurate, Ayers and Obama lived in the same neighborhood in Chicago and were part of a homeowners group for that neighborhood, truly a radical group in some folks' eyes. And, yes, they met socially as well. Ayers was an early supporter of Obama's political career. Guilt by association it appears. . . .
Because of the totally inept and almost criminal manner in which the Bush administration has handled the Iraq war, i.e., its total lack of understanding of Iraq's multicultural and divisive religious demographics, its atrocious planning and execution of the war, one can argue that the number of American casualties (and Iraqi casualties, too) were far more than they should have been because of those factors. And because John McCain voted for the war and has been a supporter of that war, shouldn't he also be condemned in some dark, ominously framed ad that questions his judgment? Is not McCain guilty by association with a Republican administration whose ineptitude has clearly led to a number of unnecessary deaths among the 4,177 killed and 30,634 wounded of our gallant forces to date?
So, which is more telling of judgment: the relationship between Obama and Ayers, or McCain and the Bush administration?
- Dick Moran is a retired commercial lending officer and lives in Salem.
Virginians must do their part to keep U.S. safe
I have lived in New York City for the past five years, but please don't hold that against me. I'm not just some pompous New Yorker -- believe me, there are plenty of those already. I grew up in Roanoke, and my family still lives all over Southwest Virginia. . . .
Four years ago on Election Day, I was living three blocks from Ground Zero when New Yorkers watched in saddened disbelief as so many states like Virginia fell to President George W. Bush, who ran a campaign of fear based upon keeping us safe. Whom exactly was he keeping safe, we wondered. We were pretty sure it wasn't us.
Terrorism is a part of our daily lives here. . . .
Barack Obama has the temperament and judgment to restore our international credibility and moral authority while also tending to immediate threats and thus keeping me in New York, and you in Virginia, safe. He also understands the severe urgency to reducing our dependence on oil that will protect our planet and move us ahead into another era of economic prosperity.
And he will move us toward a long overdue health care system that will take the power of medicine out of the hands of your for-profit insurance company and give it back to you. I, like many working people, do not receive insurance from an employer because the environment of my industry and the economy keeps me as a full-time freelancer.
I am counting dearly on you, my home state, to make me the proudest I've ever been to be a Virginian. Help swing this election to get this country back on the path that America deserves.
- Mike Ogle is a 1997 graduate of Patrick Henry High School and is a freelance sports journalist in New York, writing mostly for The New York Times.
Shoot from the hip, miss the target
John McCain is justly known as the maverick, an individual who will break away from the crowd and inject new ideas. He is also known as one who shoots from the hip. Both these traits can be useful or dangerous. . . .
One of George W. Bush's largest failings was shooting from the hip. Do you remember when he looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and said, "I can trust this man"? Bush ignored the experts who warned that Iraq was not developing nuclear weapons. He ignored the experts who warned that the Iraqis would not be waving American flags and he needed more troops to prevent the nation going into chaos. The great Colin Powell resigned. We do not need another maverick, hip-shooting commander-in-chief.
It is a shame that Dick Cheney's aggressive message was so useful in helping Bush get elected. Sarah Palin is like a Cheney in skirts without the intellect. The world is tired of us talking piety while we ignore so many who are sleeping on the streets of New York. The world resents our attempts to forcefully tell other nations how to govern themselves. Sarah Palin's talk about us fighting the war of God is very damaging. . . .
Unfortunately the chances are greater than ever in history that he will have to pass the reins to Sarah Palin.
- Bob Peckman is a jazz drummer and retired ITT engineer/physicist living in Roanoke.
Looking for a smart government
. . . Since I've been a voting adult, I have heard the constant derogatory variations of labels put to Democrats by Republicans, such as "tax and spend, bleeding-heart liberals." But in my lifetime it's been Republicans who have not been fiscally wise and Democrats -- like Bill Clinton nationally and Mark Warner locally -- who have balanced our budgets. . . .
If Democrats are so "elitist," how is it they are the party that has consistently stood up for blue-collar and middle-class families while Republicans have largely championed corporate America? . . .
And so, this fiscally conservative independent will vote Democratic once again. . . .
With an Obama administration, I'll feel assured that my civil rights and my rights to privacy won't be rewritten and that government will indeed get off my back when it comes to those cherished rights.
In the end, it isn't about the outdated labels we can pin on one another, or what new labels we give ourselves and wear like sound bites (like maverick). Whether government is small or big isn't the pertinent concern. I want a government that is smart. I believe electing Obama is the first step in that direction.
- Colleen Redman is a writer and poet from Floyd.
The personality test: maverick or rational
. . . [W]e have a choice between a maverick and a rational personality. Do we want a president who will react quickly and possibly with little thought of the consequences? Or do we want a president who will think through the issues and understand the consequences of his actions, but might not act quickly enough?
The issues confronting us today are so complex that I believe we need someone with the ability to handle that complexity and think well about the future of our country and its participation in the global community. We need a thinker more than a person who can react quickly, especially after we saw what happened with President Bush, who invaded Iraq without thinking about the consequences of his action. That is why I am voting for Barack Obama, and I urge you to do the same.
- Walter R. Smith is a certified temperament professional in Lynchburg.
LOAD-DATE: October 28, 2008
GRAPHIC: graphic - caricature of Barack Obama - Cagle Cartoons 2. caricature of John McCain - Cagle Cartoons 3. caricature of McCain and Obama - Cagle Cartoons
DOCUMENT-TYPE: COMMENTARY
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 26, 2008 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
The race for president McCain Obama PRESIDENTIAL ISSUES
The following pages highlight the positions of the two major party candidates for president. The information was compiled by Virginian-Pilot editors from candidate platforms and a variety of news sources and organizations listed on this page.
ECONOMY AND TAXES
McCAIN Sen. John McCain, who voted in favor of the $700 billion Wall Street economic recovery legislation, has proposed that the government use part of that money to buy up troubled mortgages and refinance them, giving those homeowners another chance at solvency.
His economic proposal includes spending up to $300 billion to purchase troubled mortgages directly from financial institutions and replace them with fixed-rate, government-guaranteed mortgages at the homes' reduced values.
His long-term tax proposal would extend most of President Bush's tax cuts for individual taxpayers that otherwise would expire after 2010 and increase deductions for taxpayers with dependents. For individuals and families, McCain wants to double the tax exemption for dependents (from $3,500 to $7,000) and fix the Alternative Minimum Tax so that it applies only to upper- income earners. For businesses, McCain wants to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, and he would give a new tax credit of 10 percent of all wages spent on research and development. McCain would not eliminate the estate tax entirely, but he would cut it dramatically (from 45 percent to 15 percent) and apply it only to estates worth more than $5 million.
He plans to cut the capital gains and dividend tax rate, and allow immediate deductions for businesses that invest in certain capital equipment.
McCain wants to allow seniors to delay mandatory annual withdrawals from Individual Retirement Accounts and 401(k)s. "Current rules mandate that investors must begin to sell off their 401(k) s when they reach age 70½ ," he said. "To spare investors from being forced to sell their stocks at just the time the market is hurting the most, those rules should be suspended."
His plan would also allow people 59 and older who withdraw money from Individual Retirement Accounts or 401(k) retirement plans in 2008 and 2009 to pay an income tax rate of 10 percent - instead of the usual higher rates - on the first $50,000 withdrawn each year. There would be no penalty for such withdrawals.
Some specific cuts McCain has proposed include vetoing any bill containing earmarks, mounting a review of all government agencies for unnecessary spending, and cutting agricultural and ethanol subsidies. He wants to stop all increases in domestic discretionary spending for one year. His campaign also says that winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will let McCain use those hundreds of billions of dollars to pay down the deficit. He would try to create a constitutional line-item veto that the president could use to eliminate individual spending items.
On farm subsidies, McCain is a vocal opponent of those "not based on clear need." He opposed the 2008 farm bill, saying that it would distort the global price of food and that too much of its subsidies went to wealthy farmers.
OBAMA Sen. Barack Obama voted to approve the $700 billion Wall Street economic recovery legislation and proposes a set of tax cuts for individuals and businesses to help cope with the economic crisis.
He would enact a 90-day moratorium on most home foreclosures, requiring financial institutions that take government help to agree not to act against homeowners who are trying to make payments, even if they're not in the full amounts.
He would immediately cut taxes ($500 for individuals, $1,000 for families) for households making less than $250,000, and for retired senior citizens making up to $50,000. He would extend unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspend taxes on these benefits. In 2009 and 2010, he would give businesses a $3,000 income tax credit for each new employee they hire above their current work force. He would keep the small-business investment expensing limit at $250,000 through the end of 2009 (set to expire at the end of 2008).
Obama would allow seniors to delay mandatory annual withdrawals from Individual Retirement Accounts and 401(k)s. Exempt withdrawals could be made up to the required minimum amount from taxation. He would allow savers to withdraw 15 percent, up to a maximum of $10,000, without paying a penalty as the law now requires for withdrawals before age 59½ .
He says he would call on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to create a mechanism to lend money to cities and states with fiscal problems, and to expand the government guarantees for financial institutions to encourage a return to more normal lending. He would give $25 billion to states and local governments "to provide essential services" without "raising taxes."
Obama plans to increase the tax es of individuals and families earning more than about $200,000 a year. He wants to repeal President Bush's tax cuts for households making more than $250,000 a year (raising the tax rate on the top income bracket to 39 percent from 35 percent). He would increase the tax rate on capital gains to 20 percent from 15 percent, only for people in that highest income tax bracket, and he would close the "carried interest loophole" so that salaries of hedge fund and private equity firm managers would be subject to income taxes. He has pledged to crack down on offshore tax havens.
For workers, he wants to create a "Making Work Pay" tax credit for everyone earning less than $150,000 a year. For homeowners, he wants to create a mortgage tax credit of 10 percent on interest payments. For students, Obama would provide a yearly tax credit to fund the first $4,000 of college tuition if the student completes 100 hours of community service that year. For low-income parents, he would have a tax credit for 50 percent of their child care expenses.
For businesses, Obama has suggested he would reduce the corporate tax rate if some loopholes and targeted breaks for corporations were closed, and also pledges to eliminate the capital gains tax for startup companies. On the estate tax, Obama would exempt all individual estates worth less than $3.5 million and keep the top rate at 45 percent.
On farm subsidies, Obama voted for the 2008 farm bill that contains several billion dollars of such subsidies each year. He sa id the bill was good overall because it provided farmers with more support, but he said the subsidies should have been limited to smaller farms.
THE WAR: IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN
McCAIN McCain voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq and continues to support the war. He has consistently argued that more troops were needed and supported the recent surge in troop levels. Those increases are making a difference in American efforts, he said. He has opposed setting a timetable for troop withdrawal, saying it would embolden America's enemies. He has projected that he would have most U.S. forces out of Iraq by 2013.
McCain wrote on his campaign Web site that the best way to secure long-term peace and security is to make certain Iraq is a "stable, prosperous democratic state ... that poses no threat to its neighbors and contributes to the defeat of terrorists. When Iraqi forces can safeguard their own country, American troops can return home."
A speech in May gave details. "The following are conditions I intend to achieve," he said . "By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq war has been won. ... The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role."
McCain has called for sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan. He has proposed deploying three new brigades and doubling the Afghan armed forces. He said the plan is based on President Bush's escalation of troops in Iraq . "It is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan," McCain said. When asked in July where troops for Afghanistan would come from, McCain said it would involve "greater participation from our NATO allies."
McCain has said success in Afghanistan is critical to stopping al-Qaida and, to that end, the United States must work with Pakistan to stamp out extremist-run training camps inside Pakistan. To head off "Talibanization," he favors a long-term commitment to Pakistan, including boosting its security capacity "against insurgent safe havens." McCain said he wants to get children out of extremist madrassas and "into schools." He would not at this time cut off aid. "We've got to get the support of the people." He said he opposes a unilateral strike into Pakistan, or at least announcing it ahead of time: "If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government."
OBAMA Obama has opposed the Iraq war from the beginning and criticized Congress in 2002 for passing the resolution that authorized President Bush to invade the country. "I am not opposed to all wars, I am opposed to dumb wars," he said in a 2002 speech.
He has opposed increasing the size of American forces, including the recent surge . If elected, Obama said, he will give his secretary of defense and military commanders "a new mission in Iraq: ending the war."
"Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of one to two brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 - more than 7 years after the war began," he said on his Web site.
He proposes keeping a small force in Iraq for counterterrorism missions against al-Qaida and to protect nonmilitary U.S. personnel.
Obama argues that withdrawal from Iraq will allow the United States to commit more forces to Afghanistan, where he wants to send thousands more troops.
"The decision to invade Iraq diverted resources from the war in Afghanistan, making it harder for us to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden and others involved in the 9/11 attacks. Nearly seven years later, the Taliban has re-emerged in southern Afghanistan while al- Qaida has used the space provided by the Iraq war to regroup, train and plan for another attack on the United States."
Obama has said he would be willing to attack al-Qaida inside Pakistan without Pakistani approval. He said Pakistan would have to close down al-Qaida training camps and drive out the Taliban to continue receiving U.S. military aid.
THE MILITARY AND VETERANS
McCAIN McCain said the United States needs to increase the size of all branches of it s military, paying particular attention to enlarging the Army and Marine Corps.
"For too long, we have asked too much of too few - with the result that many service personnel are on their second, third and even fourth tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. There can be no higher defense priority than the proper compensation, training and equipping of our troops," he said. "The size and composition of our armed forces must be matched to our nation's defense requirements."
The armed forces also need to adjust their training, he said. "The missions of the 21st century will not center on traditional territorial defense or mass armor engagements. Instead, the men and women of the U.S. armed forces will be engaged in, among other things, counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, missile defense, counterproliferation and information warfare. This calls not just for a larger and more capable military, but for a new mix of military forces, including civil affairs, special operations, and highly mobile forces capable of fighting and prevailing in the conflicts America faces."
He stresses the need for a strong missile defense. The United States "must continue to deploy a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent, robust missile defenses and superior conventional forces that are capable of defending the United States and our allies."
McCain favors stronger health benefits for veterans. He proposed that each veteran be given a Veterans Care Access Card so that someone with an injury or illness incurred during military service has the option of free treatment at a local private hospital if Department of Veterans Affairs services are not available because of distance or lack of specialty. He supports housing programs for seriously mentally ill veterans; further studies on the effects of Agent Orange and disability benefits for veterans with Agent Orange-related health problems; providing veterans with hospice benefits; and a demonstration project to send mobile health centers to remote locations where veterans need care.
He wants to allow military retirees to remain eligible for CHAMPUS or TRICARE military health care programs even when they reach 65 and are eligible for Medicare. He supports giving military retirees tax breaks to help pay health insurance premiums.
OBAMA Obama supports increasing the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marines by 27,000 troops. Less than 1 percent of the military can speak foreign languages such as Arabic, Mandarin or Korean, he said, calling for additional training and recruitment to address the problem.
"We must build up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply; invest in foreign language training, cultural awareness, and human intelligence and other needed counterinsurgency and stabilization skill sets; and create a more robust capacity to train, equip, and advise foreign security forces, so that local allies are better prepared to confront mutual threats."
He proposes more investment in advanced technology ranging from "unmanned aerial vehicles and electronic warfare capabilities, to essential systems like the C-17 cargo and KC-X air refueling aircraft."
"We must recapitalize our naval forces, replacing aging ships and modernizing existing platforms, while adapting them to the 21st century," he said.
With regard to missile defense, Obama said Americans must be protected from threats posed by nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. With Iran moving forward with its own programs, it would be irresponsible, he said, not to explore the possibility of deploying missile defense systems in Europe to help protect against this threat. Such systems should be deployed, however, only if based on sound technology that works.
Obama proposes to fully fund the Department of Veterans Affairs "so it has all the resources it needs to serve the veterans who need it, when they need it." He said he wants to expand and strengthen Vet Centers that provide counseling for mental health care, sexual trauma, substance abuse, employment assistance, VA claims and benefits information. He wants to establish standards of care for traumatic brain injury , require pre- and post- deployment screenings and improve case management. He wants to halt the military's practice of discharging service members for having a service-connected psychological injury.
FOREIGN POLICY
view of the world
McCain McCain, like Obama, generally rejects unilateralism. He would emphasize give-and-take with allies; "Today, as in the past, our interests are inextricably linked to the global progress of our ideals," McCain said. He said he believes that the United States exists "not simply to safeguard the prosperity and safety of those who live in it but also to spread democratic values and human rights to other parts of the planet," a New York Times reporter wrote.
He rejects torture and says the United States must obey international human rights treaties it has ratified. He said the United States and its democratic allies must build "a new global order of peace"; he would work during his first year to establish a League of Democracies, excluding Russia and China, to systematically effect democratic change that NATO does not and that Russia and China have helped prevent in the United Nations - and to impose "painful" sanctions on Iran. He called the threat of radical Islamic terrorism "the transcendent challenge of our time" but said "the war on terror cannot be the only organizing principle of American foreign policy"; he said terrorists reflect an ages-old "struggle between the future and the past, between progress and reaction, and between liberty and despotism." He sees foreign aid as key to U.S. security, addressing poverty, AIDS, malaria, government corruption and other issues.
OBAMA Obama, like McCain, generally rejects unilateralism. Obama said: "Not talking (to leaders we don't like) ... makes it harder for America to rally international support for our leadership." He said the United States should regain its place as a global leader through, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, "skillful diplomacy, a revitalized military, and by confronting nuclear proliferation," which he calls "the most urgent threat to the security of America and the world." A core principle is that "the security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people." He would expand the presence worldwide of diplomats, development experts and others to work alongside the military in places threatened by extremism; help weak states build "independent judicial systems, honest police forces," and transparent and accountable financial systems. He sees development as a strategic imperative, so he would double annual foreign aid to $50 billion by 2012, including the U.N. goal to halve extreme poverty by 2015. He would fight poverty and "expand prosperity" with sustainable debt relief, seed capital and technical aid, and with reforms to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. He would spend $50 billion across five years to fight HIV/AIDS worldwide. He'd use trade agreements to boost U.S. economic security and "good labor and environmental standards" in other nations.
U.S. role in the world
McCAIN McCain said the United States can no longer rely on strongmen such as the shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, the Saudi royal family and Pakistan's generals to provide stability in the Middle East. "It is the democracies of the world that will provide the pillars upon which we can and must build an enduring peace."
He's long been chairman of the International Republican Institute, which promotes democratic reforms in closed societies, and he meets with dissidents in repressive societies. He said foreign aid should foster good governance.
OBAMA Obama supports the promotion of democracy but tends not to frame his foreign policy around it, said the Council on Foreign Relations. Obama said that the United States benefits from expansion of democracy and that democratic countries are "our best trading partners, our most valuable allies and the nations with which we share our deepest values." Rather than focus on elections and other classic forms of political rights, he said, "We have to be focused on what are the aspirations of the people in those countries. Once those aspirations are met, it opens up space for the kind of democratic regimes that we want." He's said the United States should advance democracy by setting an example; by banning torture and extraordinary rendition; and by closing the prison at Guantanamo . He would "significantly increase" funding for nongovernmental groups to support "civic activists in repressive societies" and would start a Rapid Response Fund to help fledgling democracies and postwar societies. He said democracies can better fight terrorism, stop weapons proliferation and deal with public health crises; so besides doubling foreign aid, he would demand reform of corrupt governments and fund a $2 billion Global Education Fund to ensure educated citizens who can support democracy.
rogue states
McCAIN In 2000, McCain stated a policy of "rogue state rollback" against "countries that continue to try to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them," saying "I would arm, train, equip, both from without and from within, forces that would eventually overthrow the governments and install free and democratically elected governments." He now articulates a more diplomatic approach, employing pressure with allies, but not ruling out force. He would not meet with leaders of rogue states.
OBAMA Obama says diplomacy provides an opportunity to push directly and exhaust possibilities. He's said he favors unconditional direct talks with leaders of rogue states, later adding that such a position would depend on groundwork laid by lower-level officials indicating that top-level talks would be fruitful.
Europe, the U.N. and NATO
McCAIN McCain said he wants to revitalize the partnership with Europe and said Russia is not an ally. He has long viewed leader Vladimir Putin and Russia as bullying. Since 2005, he has said Russia should be ousted from the Group of 8 industrialized democracies (replaced with Brazil and India).
He said NATO's future lies in resisting the Russian danger, tackling "a common energy policy," a common market, formal cooperation on climate change, foreign aid and promotion of democracy. He sides with NATO members that want to put the Ukraine and Georgia on a path to membership. He said the United Nations must be reformed, though in 2004 he said the United States should continue financial support and contribute peacekeep ers.
OBAMA Obama would push for democracy, transparency and accountability in Russia. After the Russia/Georgia military clash in August, he called for international mediation and peacekeepers. He praised Bush's $1 billion in aid for Georgia and the EU's diplomatic actions. He hinted that Russia was risking entry into the World Trade Organization.
Obama would rally NATO members to contribute troops and money to operations, streamline decision-making and boost flexibility for commanders in the field. He sides with NATO members that want to put the Ukraine and Georgia on the path to membership.
He wants U.N. reforms and opposed Bush's nomination of John Bolton as ambassador, saying countries opposing reform would use Bolton's opposition to the U.N.'s existence as a shield. He said that the U.N. should be key in crises such as Darfur and that the U.N. should help bring peace to Iraq and convene a constitutional convention for it. He's advocated a U.N. role in establishing war crimes investigations there.
Middle East
McCAIN McCain said "America's unequivocal support for Israel ... is the best guarantor of peace in the Middle East." Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he favors a two-state solution - one Jewish, one Palestinian. He favors Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital but says the status depends on negotiations. He said he is committed to pursuing the peace process, but said the U.S. can't force success between unwilling parties. He said Israel should make its own decisions free of U.S. pressure and said he wants no peace process until Palestinians recognize Israel, forbid violence "forever," honor previous agreements and reform institutions. He would "further isolate" Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah.
McCain said pressuring Iran, with approaches including sanctions such as halting loans, would be a central function of his League of Democracies. He opposes unconditional diplomacy, has spoken out against meeting with Iran's president and would keep the military option on the table but consult with leaders of Congress. He'd use force against Iran if it gets a nuclear weapon and becomes a "real threat" to Israel.
OBAMA Obama said the "first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel." He favors a two-state solution - one Jewish, one Palestinian. He views Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but said he thinks that "it needs to be left up to the two parties." He'd convene a forum in the Mideast with regional heads of state shortly after being elected. He would not talk with Hamas and Hezbollah but would "strengthen ... Palestinian moderates" and negotiate directly with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Obama said he favors presidential diplomacy "without preconditions" to pressure Iran directly on its nuclear ambitions. Initially, he said talks would not depend on suspension of uranium enrichment but later qualified his comments to indicate a need for lower- level preparatory talks. If talks fail, he would increase economic pressure - including divestiture of private pension plans - and political isolation with international cooperation. The military option is on the table. "We cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran."
China
McCAIN McCain said China is not an ally. He favors a policy to hedge against its growing influence - not an effort to oppose China's emergence as an influential power but rather to maintain a military in East Asia, strengthen the alliance with Japan and relations with other Asian nations, and to work through various groups to "further American interests and values."
OBAMA Obama sees China as a competitor , not an enemy or friend, but said the United States should have enough contact with China to be able to stabilize the region. He'd "forge a more effective regional framework in Asia," building on existing relationships.
Africa
McCAIN McCain said the United States must strongly engage with friendly governments, "insist on improvements in transparency and the rule of law" and employ his new League of Democracies to help with humanitarian crises. He'd seek to eradicate malaria, "the No. 1 killer of children under age 5" in Africa . He condemned Sudan for the Darfur genocide and demanded that Sudan follow the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. He's favored a NATO-enforced no-fly zone and international sanctions and said he would " consider ... all elements of American power" to stop the genocide.
OBAMA Obama "has been particularly vocal " on Africa policy, said the Council on Foreign Relations. He wants more public health efforts, new initiatives to provide agricultural aid, access to low-carbon energy technology for development, and access to U.S. markets. He condemned Sudan for the Darfur genocide and demanded that Sudan follow the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. He favored the no-fly zone and says he would stop the genocide.
The Americas
McCAIN McCain said "U.S. inattention has harmed our relationships" in the hemisphere. He would work to counter "demagogues" such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. He said economic development, free trade and a better flow of goods and services are a key to free, democratic societies. Mexico, Brazil and other "great democratic Latin American nations" would have "a strong voice" in his League of Democracies - "a voice they are denied in the U.N. Security Council." NAFTA is "one of the best things that happened to the United States"; free trade is a key to economic development, which in turn "means free societies." In Cuba, the U.S. should provide "material assistance and moral support" to Cubans who oppose the Castro regime. After Fidel Castro dies, he favors offering trade, aid and economic development as well as help with democratization.
OBAMA Obama said he would rebuild diplomatic links , "increase support for the building blocks of durable democracies" in the hemisphere, such as independent judiciaries, the rule of law and honest police forces. He would c reate a "hemispheric security initiative" fostering cooperation among nations against violence and trafficking. He has said he would unilaterally seek to end NAFTA if Mexico and Canada do not agree to renegotiate aspects that hurt U.S. workers. He would allow unlimited family travel to Cuba and "remittances" to people there. After Fidel Castro dies, he would take steps to normalize relations and ease the embargo if Cuba "takes significant steps toward democracy, beginning with freeing all political prisoners."
North Korea
McCAIN McCain described North Korea as the main security challenge in Asia. In May, he called for a return to President Bush's original demand for a complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament of North Korea's nuclear programs. He said, "Future talks must take into account North Korea's ballistic missile programs, its abduction of Japanese citizens, and its support for terrorism and proliferation."
OBAMA In May 2005, Obama said North Korea is one of the "biggest proliferation challenges we currently face." He favors strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty so countries like North Korea "that break the rules will automatically face strong international sanctions." He favors an international coalition to defuse North Korean and Iranian nuclear threats. And he supports "sustained, direct and aggressive diplomacy."
Education
McCAIN McCain favors charter schools, home schooling, voucher systems - when approved by local officials - and giving parents tax credits to help pay for private schools. "We need to reward good teachers and find bad teachers another line of work," he has said. He voted for the federal No Child Left Behind legislation but said it is only the beginning of education reform. He said there are problems with the NCLB law, particularly when it comes to testing students with disabilities and non-English-speaking students, but he wants to improve it, not discard it.
He wants to expand virtual learning in part by targeting $500 million in current federal funds to build virtual schools and develop online courses.
McCain generally backs greater federal funding of Pell Grants and government low-interest loans to help students afford college.
OBAMA Obama wants to ensure access to high-quality early childhood education and child care . He said he wants to recruit and reward well-qualified and accomplished teachers, and make science and math education a national priority. He said the overall goal of the No Child Left Behind law "is the right one ... but the law has significant flaws that need to be addressed." Under NCLB, "we have spent too much time preparing students for tests that do not provide any valuable, timely feedback on how to improve a student's learning. We need tests and measurements, but we should ensure that they are useful to improve student learning." He proposes investing $10 billion a year to increase the number of children eligible for Early Head Start, increase access to preschool, and provide affordable and quality child care. He wants to increase the tax credit for child and dependent care . He proposes scholarships to cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education, including high-quality alternative programs for mid-career recruits in exchange for teaching at least four years in a high-need field or location. He would expand the Pell Grant and lower interest rates on existing federal student loan programs.
HEALTH CARE
overall coverage
McCAIN McCain pledges affordable health care for every American and calls this one of his top three priorities for his first year in office. No mandates; he wants a system based on the free market, tax incentives and individual decisions. Employees would pay income tax on health benefits provided by employers, a change McCain says would finance a $2,500 refundable tax credit for individuals and $5,000 for families to go toward coverage. Businesses would still be able to deduct benefits as an expense. Plans would be portable from job to job and, in a change from current law, across state lines - to target community ratings that force premiums lower for sick and elderly people, higher for young and healthy ones. McCain would encourage innovative multiyear insurance products and push health savings accounts. Also, he'd encourage governors to develop a best-practice Guaranteed Access Plan model to help provide coverage of last resort for people with pre-existing conditions until the marketplace has matured enough to take care of them. A GAP might subsidize and limit premiums; it could cost up to $7 billion a year. McCain also would encourage small businesses and other groups to band together to negotiate lower rates and would lobby insurers for better coverage of preventive care. For children, he would promote walk-in clinics and the use of existing programs; promote education about health, nutrition and exercise; and expand community health centers. He would "encourage states to continue exploring with their own" reforms.
OBAMA As one of Obama's stated top three priorities to address during his first year in office, he wants universal coverage approved by the end of his first term. Coverage would be through federal and free-market programs. He would mandate insurance for all children. He wants to create a national health plan modeled on that for members of Congress and subsidize participation by poor people in it or in a private plan. He would create a National Health Insurance Exchange to be a watchdog, reformer and evaluator for private plans. Through the national system and the exchange, plans would be portable from job to job but not from state to state; Obama said state-mandated protections would be lost. He would require employers to offer or contribute to coverage, or else contribute to the cost of national coverage. Small businesses would be exempt and would get a tax credit for up to 50 percent of premiums and get help with catastrophic costs. Insurers could not reject people with pre-existing conditions or charge them more. People younger than 25 could stay on their parents' plan. States could experiment within standards of the national plan.
drug costs
McCAIN McCain would allow importation of drugs from developed countries and streamline the process for introducing generics. He would require transparency in costs and quality.
OBAMA Obama would allow importation from developed countries if drugs are safe and cheaper. He'd streamline the process for introducing generics and prohibit drug companies from keeping them off the market. He'd use more generics in Medicare, Medicaid and the federal employees' health program and require transparency in costs and quality.
covering costs
McCAIN McCain said universal care is possible without a tax increase; his cost estimate is unclear, but FactCheck.org said "independent budget experts estimate McCain's plan would cost tens of billions each year, though details are too fuzzy to allow for exact estimates." Especially for chronic conditions, McCain emphasizes prevention, early intervention, healthy habits, new treatment models, new public health infrastructure and use of information technology. He would dedicate more federal research to chronic disease and require transparency in treatment options, outcomes and costs. He'd compensate providers based on quality and promote alternative providers and treatment settings. He would expand health savings accounts.
OBAMA Obama's estimated cost is $50 billion to $65 billion annually. He said he covers that by letting Bush tax cuts expire for households earning more than $250,000 a year, by reducing errors, redundant care and waste; by recouping money from care that patients don't pay for; and by providing federal reinsurance for catastrophic coverage. He said better competition and antitrust protections should prevent "unjustified price increases." He also would cut costs through prevention and advances in information technology, and put $50 billion toward that technology. He would require transparency in quality and costs. He said he would lower the country's health care costs enough to "bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family," but his advisers said "premiums" refers to a basket of savings, including individuals' and employers' premiums, and in tax-supported programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. He said health savings accounts "don't do nearly enough" to provide comprehensive health coverage.
Medicare, Medicaid
McCAIN Regarding Medicare, McCain would pay providers not by each individual service but by success in treatment. For Medicare and Medicaid, he would cover prevention, diagnosis and coordination of care, and would exclude payment for preventable errors and mismanagement. In 2003, he opposed the Medicare Part D program as subsidizing the wealthy and worsening Medicare's financial problems; he'd make wealthier beneficiaries pay more for their drug benefits. He opposes giving the federal government the power and controls entailed in negotiating Medicare Part D drug prices. He said fixing Medicare would be tougher than fixing Social Security; he advocated a bipartisan commission to make recommendations, and would then make the congressional vote a flat yes or no, as with the base closing commission.
OBAMA Obama would base Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements on success in treatment. He'd reduce Medicare costs also by enacting reforms to lower the price of prescription drugs, letting the federal government negotiate lower prices as it does for veterans. He would end subsidies for private insurers in Medicare Advantage and focus resources on prevention and chronic-disease management. He would reduce the number of Medicare Part D drug plans and close the "doughnut hole" coverage gap in Part D. He also would expand Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
SOCIAL SECURITY
McCAIN McCain would let individuals supplement the current system by investing part of their payroll taxes in stocks and bonds. He endorsed a plan in 2005 that would have let workers born after 1950 put one-third of those taxes into such accounts, which would have been government-run stock or bond funds. He would slow growth in benefits rather than raise taxes. He has said that to prevent insolvency in the program, "hard decisions" are necessary; benefits can't be maintained at current levels. Like Obama, he cites the bipartisan Greenspan Commission, which advised benefit and tax changes, in saying he would convene a bipartisan group to consider all options to prevent insolvency.
OBAMA Obama opposes any privatization. Like McCain, he cites the bipartisan Greenspan Commission, which advised benefit and tax changes, and said "everything has to be on the table." He has stepped back from discussions of taxing all income at the current 12.4 percent rate. He now says that, starting a decade from now, he would apply the 12.4 percent payroll tax to individual earnings up to their current cap (now $102,000, adjusted annually for inflation), then earnings of more than $250,000 to a tax of 2 to 4 percent. Earnings between those levels would not be taxed. Among other proposals, Obama would increase protections for workers and retirees when corporations go bankrupt. He wants employers without a retirement plan to enroll workers in a direct-deposit IRA; workers could opt out. He would create a savings match of 50 percent of the first $1,000 for families earning less than $75,000 and eliminate income tax for senior citizens earning less than $50,000.
ABORTION
McCAIN McCain voted for the Prohibit Partial Birth Abortion bill in 2003 and "yes" for the Prohibiting Funds for Groups that Perform Abortions amendment in 2007. He believes the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision is flawed and must be overturned. McCain, who also promotes adoption, has a daughter that he and his wife, Cindy, adopted from Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh. He has co-sponsored legislation to prohibit discrimination against families with adopted children, to provide adoption education, and to permit tax deductions for qualified adoption expenses, as well as to remove barriers to interracial and interethnic adoptions.
OBAMA Obama opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v Wade. He disagreed with the Supreme Court ruling upholding the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. He did not vote on the Prohibiting Funds for Groups that Perform Abortions amendment in 2007.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
McCAIN McCain said he supports an affirmative-action initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot in his home state of Arizona that would end racial and gender preferences in education and hiring. Asked about affirmative action, McCain said it " is in the eye of the beholder" and praised the military as the nation's greatest equal opportunity employer.
OBAMA Obama supports affirmative action, a policy that promotes opportunities for racial minorities and women in hiring and education, though he has suggested that such programs should eventually focus on income, not race. Still, he opposes anti-affirmative ballot measures pending in Colorado, Nebraska and Arizona.
IMMIGRATION
McCAIN McCain co-sponsored Bush-backed immigration legislation that would have increased funding and improved border security technology, improved enforcement of existing laws, and provided a legal path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants. McCain voted to authorize construction of a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. His top immigration priority is to finish securing U.S. borders in an expedited manner. McCain wants to implement a secure and reliable electronic employment verification system to ensure that individuals are screened for work eligibility in real time. He wants temporary worker programs that reflect the labor needs of the United States in both the high-tech and low-skilled sectors while protecting job opportunities of U.S. workers.
OBAMA Obama supported the Bush-backed immigration legislation. He voted to authorize construction of a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. He supports additional personnel, infrastructure and technology on the border and at U.S. ports of entry. He wants to fix what he considers a dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy and increase the number of legal immigrants to keep families together and meet the demand for jobs that employers cannot fill. He wants to remove incentives to enter the country illegally, by cracking down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants. He supports a system that allows undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.
GAY RIGHTS
McCAIN McCain believes the institution of marriage is a union between one man and one woman. He says states and local governments should set their own marriage policies. McCain said he would nominate judges who understand that the role of the court is not to subvert the rights of the people by legislating from the bench. Critical to constitutional balance, he says, is ensuring that, where state and local governments do act to preserve the "traditional" family, the courts must not overstep their authority and thwart the constitutional right of the people to decide this question. The McCain campaign states that gay adoption is a state issue and that he does not endorse any federal legislation.
OBAMA Obama opposes same-sex marriage but also opposes a constitutional ban. He supports full civil unions that "give same-sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as married couples, including the right to assist their loved ones in times of emergency as well as equal health insurance, employment benefits, and property and adoption rights," his Web site states. He says the Employment Non-Discrimination Act should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. He advocated legislation that sought to expand federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation and gender identity. He said the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy needs to be repealed.
GUN RIGHTS/CONTROL
McCAIN McCain supports instant criminal background checks on people buying guns and believes the law should apply to gun sales at gun shows. He opposes restrictions on assault weapons and supported legislation requiring gun manufacturers to include gun safety devices such as trigger locks in product packaging. He voted for a 2006 amendment prohibiting confiscation of firearms from private citizens, particularly during times of crisis or emergency. McCain believes in strict, mandatory penalties for criminals who use a firearm in the commission of a crime or who illegally possess a firearm.
OBAMA Obama voted against a 2005 law prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers stemming from acts committed by others using their products. He supports instant criminal background checks on people buying guns and believes the law should apply to gun sales at gun shows. He calls for permanently reinstating the assault weapons ban and voted for a 2005 amendment placing restrictions on rifle ammunition that is "designed or marketed" to be armor-piercing. He supports making guns childproof. He voted for a 2006 amendment prohibiting confiscation of firearms from private citizens, particularly during times of crisis or emergency.
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
McCAIN McCain said he believes global climate change is real, consequential and related to human activities. Noticeable effects from the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are already being felt, he said, and scientists are convinced that the effects will grow more significant and costly. He favors tougher fuel efficiency, and led Senate efforts to cap greenhouse emissions. He backs a cap-and-trade system that would set limits on greenhouse gas emissions while encouraging development of low-cost compliance options. He wants greenhouse emissions cut by 60 percent by 2050, compared with 1990 levels.
OBAMA Obama believes global warming is real, is happening now and is the result of human activities. He said the U.S. has a "moral, environmental, economic and security imperative to tackle climate change in a serious, sustainable manner." He proposed to cut carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050 using a cap-and-trade program that sets a national cap on carbon emissions. Emissions allowed under the cap would be divided into individual allowances. Companies would be free to buy and sell allowances to continue operating in the most profitable manner available. Those that could reduce pollution at a low cost could sell their extra allowances to companies facing high costs. Each year the number of allowances would be reduced to match the required annual reduction targets.
ENERGY
Both candidates see energy independence as critical to national security and to the global environment. McCain seeks "strategic independence" by 2025; Obama, independence from Middle Eastern oil "within 10 years." Both put energy as one of their top three priorities for their first year in office.
'clean coal'
McCAIN McCain would spend $2 billion a year for the next 15 years on "clean coal" technology, and eventually export that technology to coal-polluting countries such as China, creating more jobs and boosting the U.S. role as a leader in green economy. He said coal-to-liquid may be viable given advances in technology for carbon capture and pollution control.
OBAMA Obama would create public-private partnerships to develop five pioneering "commercial-scale coal-fired plants with clean carbon capture and sequestration technology." He would consider banning new coal plants that have no "clean coal" technology. He sponsored a bill with subsidies to develop liquid coal; he later he said he'd back subsidies only if the fuel could be produced with emissions 20 percent lower than gasoline's.
offshore drilling
McCAIN In June, McCain reversed his opposition to lifting federal restrictions on drilling for oil and natural gas on the Outer Continental Shelf. Now he also favors incentives to states to allow it.
OBAMA Obama opposed lifting federal restrictions on Outer Continental Shelf drilling; in August, he said he could accept a limited expansion of drilling if that support freed a logjam of energy bills that included proposals he favored.
domestic oil/natural gas production
McCAIN McCain opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and favors the prospective natural gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope.
OBAMA Obama opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and voted to designate it as protected wilderness. He would institute a "use it or lose it" policy for oil and gas leases onshore and offshore. He said he would facilitate construction of the prospective Alaska natural gas pipeline.
alternative energy
McCAIN McCain proposes a $300 million prize for the inventor who devises a car battery cutting electric vehicle costs by 70 percent; he would fund it with "some of the savings from cutting subsidies for industries that can stand on their own." He'd encourage research and development of technology and demonstration models partly by fostering public-private partnerships for companies that lag because of "regulatory fear." He favors alcohol-based fuels from sources such as switchgrass and biodiesel from waste. On ethanol subsidies, he "would eliminate mandates, subsidies, tariffs and price supports that focus exclusively on corn-based ethanol," preferring market-based solutions.
OBAMA Obama strongly prefers renewable sources and greater efficiency over increased use of nuclear power. He would invest $150 billion in emerging technologies and renewable fuels, primarily non-nuclear. But in a September debate, he conceded he may have to scale that back because of the economic crisis. He has said he would ensure that 10 percent of electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025. He'd auction greenhouse-gas emission credits to bolster research and development and would set requirements for how much renewable energy public utilities would have to buy. He favors ethanol subsidies; would require 60 billion gallons of biofuels to be produced in the U.S. each year by 2030. He'd create a service corps to train disadvantaged youths for energy and environmental jobs.
conservation
McCAIN McCain said home, business and government conservation is a big part of energy efficiency and security. He'd make the government a leader in conservation and direct the construction market, by applying a higher efficiency standard to new buildings leased or purchased or by retrofitting existing buildings. He'd raise penalties for and enforce existing CAFE standards (automakers' mileage requirements) and would reduce red tape to allow "a serious investment" to update the electric grid.
OBAMA Obama said all Americans must work on conservation. He'd seek to cut electricity demand 15 percent from projected levels by 2020; raise fuel economy standards by 4 percent each year; and provide aid to U.S. automakers to retool to meet those standards. Automakers would get either of the following: help "shouldering their health care legacy costs in exchange for investing 50 percent of the savings into technology to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles," or tax incentives to retool plants. The total for retooling: $4 billion. Also, he favors a $7,000 tax credit to buyers of fuel-efficient hybrid plug-in cars. He wants to weatherize at least 1 million low-income homes annually for the next decade.
nuclear power
McCAIN McCain strongly advocates nuclear energy as safe and clean, and critical to dealing with global warming. He wants to build 45 plants by 2030; eventually, 100. He'd support subsidies for building plants in the U.S. In the context of the economic crisis, he pushed the goal but did not address the financial feasibility . He favors storing nuclear waste in the proposed Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada.
OBAMA Obama said nuclear power should have a role as part of a larger package of alternative sources of energy. He is concerned about nuclear waste safety, storage, vulnerability to terrorist attack and use in weapons proliferation. He opposes storing nuclear waste in the proposed Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada and favors keeping waste at reactors "until we find a safe, long-term disposal solution that is based on sound science." Where they stand on the issues
LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 26, 2008 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Blame belongs on Main Street
In the age of falling markets and unemployment at an alarming 6 percent, we need to sit back and think for a moment how we got ourselves into this mess.
Was it the Bush administration?
Was it the federal government?
Was it Wall Street?
I beg to differ; think about this for a moment. The average American uses credit cards and overspends more than any other nation on Earth.
We need to focus on how to fix the problem of the battered economy instead of playing the blame game!
I think that we have spent ourselves into a deep ravine. Times here at home are going to get much worse before we hit bottom.
The buck stops here.
Christopher Sansone
Virginia Beach
Unsecure elections
Maybe I've just noticed, but it seems that over the past decade our elections are losing legitimacy. Now, with electronic voting, it is very possible that the results will be inaccurate or, at the very least, subject to question and suspicion.
I am unaware of the penalties for voting fraud, but clearly, the results of such activity, combined with voting machines that are unreliable and subject to tampering, are not trivial and a threat to the processes that our nation was built on. Where is the outrage?
Jack Dantone
Virginia Beach
Green Party platform
Because of the enthusiastic support provided by so many Norfolk residents, Virginians will have the opportunity to vote for real change in November by electing the Green Party candidates, Cynthia McKinney for president and Rosa Clemente for vice president.
Here's where they stand:
\n The occupation of Iraq is illegal, immoral and unjustified. Withdraw all American forces within 60 days of taking office.
\n The present system of health care in this country leaves millions unprotected while at the same time generating obscene profits for doctors, HMOs and drug companies. Health care should be free, universal and financed by the government.
\n Global warming, not terrorism, poses the greatest threat to America. Continued carbon dioxide emissions will worsen climate change and increase the speed of global warming. Stop new drilling for oil, and convert existing power plants to clean, renewable energy.
\n Bank deregulation is the cause of the present economic crisis. The Green Party supports small, publicly funded community investment banks, opposes bank deregulation and opposes the recent taxpayer-funded bailout of Wall Street.
\n The outsourcing of American jobs is a direct result of the current corporate domination of the federal government. The Green Party accepts no corporate donations and supports small family farms and local businesses.
McKinney and Clemente represent the true interests of working America.
James Blythe
Sumerduck, Va.
A woman's choice
Re "Obama's abortion stands," letter, Oct. 13:
I am a firm believer in abortion rights for all women of this country because, and this is only my opinion, it is no one's business but their own. I do not understand where people believe that they know what could be going on in my life at that particular moment more than I do, or that they know what is best for me.
Barack Obama is my choice for president because he believes that a woman has a right to make up her own mind regarding her life and her body.
Carolyn Ivey
Virginia Beach
Gold star lawmaker
As a member of the Gold Star Wives, I know that Thelma Drake is very concerned about our military, their care, their benefits and especially their families. She is one of four members of Congress to receive the Appreciation Award. This recognition speaks for itself, as it thanks her for her support of our active-duty military, veterans and their families.
Elizabeth Goins
Norfolk
Drake's expertise
In a recent debate sponsored by WVEC with Democratic challenger Glenn Nye, Congresswoman Thelma Drake said the crisis in the housing market was due to the heavy-handed actions of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Why is it that Drake, a Realtor, could not make her voice heard on the subprime issue in Congress? There is more to serving in Congress than having technical expertise; congressional service requires leadership.
Why is it no one listened to Drake, but they did to Pelosi? Because Drake's actions indicate she does not have what it takes to be the leader we need.
The speaker of the House is not the only person in Congress capable of building a consensus among House members. Now more than ever we need leaders in Congress, not technocrats.
Jason Belcher
Hampton
Half-truth on veterans
Glenn Nye's TV ad claims Rep. Thelma Drake voted against a bill providing financial help to wounded veterans and implying that she has turned her back on them.
The truth is that Drake did not vote for the particular bill Nye cited but another that included additional benefits. Rep. Drake has received the endorsement of the VFW pact. They know that Drake fights for them.
Margo Taylor
Norfolk
Leadership results
Linda Johnson was there for the citizens of Suffolk during the tornado, working tirelessly and endlessly. She never gave up until the job was done and was a positive voice during this tragedy.
Johnson is supported by all five Suffolk constitutional officers (commonwealth's attorney, sheriff, city treasurer, commissioner of the revenue and clerk of court) as well as City Council members, the Economic Development Authority, Planning Commission, Redevelopment and Housing Authority, School Board and former City Manager James G. Vacalis.
Cynthia S. Ferguson
Suffolk
From small to large
John McCain's reference to Joe the plumber is a distraction. Apparently, the real Joe isn't even close to owning a business. Nevertheless, McCain uses Joe. But wait a minute. If a small business owner begins to clear $250,000 a year, it seems to me that his business is no longer a small business. Tax breaks wouldn't be appropriate. What's wrong with that?
Sonia Prauser
Virginia Beach
LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 26, 2008 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Obama, mcCain duel out west
By Ben Feller
The Associated Press
RENO, Nev.
Scrambling to win the West, Democrat Barack Obama mocked John McCain on Saturday for aggressively trying to distance himself from President Bush. McCain touted his Western ties and warned that Obama is a tax-and-spend threat to the nation.
Ten days before the election, both candidates were targeting the same trio of states - Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. Any of them could help shape who wins the presidency.
The flurry of appearances by Obama and McCain likely represent the last time in a long, testy campaign that the toss-up territory of the West will get this much attention. Electoral prizes of the East Coast, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, will soon take command.
Obama again lumped McCain with the unpopular president of his own party. McCain, an Arizona senator, has blamed Bush's leadership for the country's woes in recent days .
Obama said it was too late for McCain to portray himself as independent from Bush after standing with him for years.
Real change, Obama said, is "not somebody who's trying to break with his president over the last 10 days after having supporting him for the last eight years."
As the front-running Obama campaigned at a baseball stadium, McCain was at an outdoor rally at the New Mexico state fairgrounds in Albuquerque. The Arizona Republican claimed he had the edge in battleground states in the region, calling himself "a fellow Westerner."
"Senator Obama has never been south of the border," said McCain, arguing that he has a feel for issues, such as water, that resonate throughout the region.
Obama's campaign said that Obama had, in fact, been to Mexico before he got into public office.
McCain continued to portray Obama, an Illinois senator, as a tax-and-spend liberal certain to push for more government and higher spending. "He believes in redistributing wealth," McCain said. "That's not America."
He claimed a home-court advantage, with deep knowledge of issues that resonate in the West.
"I know the issues, I know land, I know water, I know Native American issues," said McCain, speaking at a sun-splashed rally in Mesilla, N.M. "I know how Western states are growing with dynamic strength. Sen. Obama does not understand these issues."
His running mate, Sarah Palin, evoked the same theme Saturday in Sioux City, Iowa. While she spoke, the crowd at her rally cried out about Obama: "He's a socialist!"
Obama, meanwhile, continued to use his fundraising appeal to his advantage.
His campaign unveiled a two-minute TV ad that asks, "Will our country be better off four years from now?"
The length of the ad, which will air in key states, highlights Obama's fundraising superiority - most campaign commercials run 30 seconds or a minute.
Without mentioning McCain, the ad promotes Obama's economic policies while saying that Obama will work to end "mindless partisanship" and "divisiveness."
The Republican National Committee released its own TV ad Saturday questioning whether Obama has the experience to be president. The ad, featuring the image of a stormy ocean, says the nation is in "uncertain times" that could get worse and asks whether voters want a president "who's untested at the helm."
related news
John McCain's brother stops campaigning
The younger brother of Republican presidential candidate John McCain has withdrawn from campaign activities and apologized for swearing at an emergency dispatcher after he called 911 to inquire about a traffic jam on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in the Washington, D.C., area.
Joe McCain, 66, said he was stepping aside to avoid becoming a liability for the Arizona senator before the Nov. 4 election. In an interview Saturday, he described the 911 call as "the biggest mistake I will ever make in my life, at least in politics," and said he thought he had hung up the phone before uttering an expletive. The audio clip of McCain's swearing first aired on a Washington-area ABC television affiilate.
The apology marked the second this month for him. He also apologized after referring to suburban Alexandria and Arlington County as "communist country" at a rally in suburban Loudoun County. - The Washington Post
Biden in Suffolk
Sen. Joe Biden holds a rally at Nansemond River High School. in Hampton Roads Giuliani in Virginia Beach
Rudy Giuliani and other Republicans hold a rally at Crowne Plaza hotel.
LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2008
GRAPHIC: tim dunn | the associated press Democrat Barack Obama, shown above at a rally Saturday in Reno, Nev., again lumped his opponent for the presidency, Republican John McCain, with the unpopular President Bush. stephan savoia | the associated press McCain, shown above at a rally Saturday in Mesilla, N.M., continued to portray Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal certain to push for more government and higher spending.
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The Washington Post
October 26, 2008 Sunday
Every Edition
Death Knell Tolls For More Businesses
SECTION: EXTRAS; Pg. LZ03
Living in LoCo is Erica Garman's blog devoted to all things interesting in Loudoun County. You can find it at http://www.loudounextra.com. This column of highlights from the blog appears in this space every Sunday.
The worldwide financial crisis is hitting close to home, as more Loudoun County businesses close or consider closing because of fewer customers.
Ron Richards, co-owner of an Image Sun Tanning Center in Ashburn, told me Thursday that his business and a number of other shops and restaurants in the Broadlands Marketplace are losing money every day and are in danger of shutting down unless the property owner, Van Metre, reduces rents and increases promotion of the strip mall.
"We don't want to step on any toes," Richards said. "But we're in danger of falling apart. They have to do something to work with us."
Richards said that he has applied for several small-business loans to make it through the slowdown but that banks are not lending.
Most of the businesses at Broadlands Marketplace signed 10-year contracts when the strip mall opened 3 1/2 years ago. Rents are rumored to range from $5,000 to $12,000 a month.
Lessees were promised that an office building would be built across from the mall, which would bring in business, Richards said. "Now, Van Metre tells us that project is not happening any time soon," he said.
Mitchell Baron, who owns a dental practice next to Image Sun, echoed Richards's concerns. "It's 4:45 p.m. on a Thursday," he told me on the phone, "and there are only three cars in the parking lot."
Ty Hausch with Van Metre Properties, who is a resident of Broadlands, said that the rents at Broadlands Marketplace are less than those at similar shopping centers in Brambleton and Lansdowne.
"Van Metre has already spent over $100,000 in advertising, direct mail, events and signage to market this shopping plaza, and we are still educating consumers about the businesses here," he said, adding that the office building project across the street is on hold because of the market conditions.
Hausch said he plans to meet with the tenants Wednesday to address their concerns and go over the shopping plaza's marketing plan.
So, are the business owners' concerns an indicator that more Loudoun shops and services will close for good?
Several weeks ago, the upscale Cafe Panache closed in Broadlands, and Kirkpatrick's Irish Pub in Ashburn Village just shut down. Last week, it was announced that the beer-brewing operation at Old Dominion Brewing Co. in Ashburn will be moving next year to Dover, Del. In a statement Tuesday, Coastal Brewing said that it will continue to brew Dominion beer at a consolidated center in Delaware and that the company is offering positions there for the 15 or so employees who work in Ashburn.
Political Signs Cause a Stir
This dispatch comes from Val Cavalheri, Living in LoCo's South Riding correspondent.
As the presidential candidates firm up their stands in the last days of the campaign, a South Riding couple are taking a stand by displaying political signs in their yard.
A few weeks ago, Krista and Chris Woods put up two John McCain signs on their front lawn. Krista Woods said they had seen political signs in yards during last year's election and thought nothing of it.
What followed surprised them both.
First was the letter they received Oct. 6 from their homeowners association telling them they had five days to take down the signs. South Riding Proprietary prohibits signs posted on lots and common areas but allows them to be displayed in the windows of residents' homes. Accepting the homeowners association's decision, the Woodses thought they would keep the signs up for the rest of the week, which was within the five-day period.
Two days later, they found another letter in their mailbox. "The signs are offensive," it said, "and must be taken down immediately." The letter also said the couple would be fined $35 per day per sign. It was signed "Neighborhood Watch Patroller."
South Riding has a Neighborhood Watch program, but officials with that committee and with the homeowners association denied approving the letter.
In an e-mail to Chris Woods, Elaine Stoner, the covenants director for South Riding, wrote that she understood the couple's "disbelief" about the note. But Stoner renewed her request that the Woodses comply with homeowners association rules by removing the signs, saying she was "receiving angry e-mails daily about them."
With only a few days left before the deadline to remove the signs, Chris Woods decided to illuminate them with a floodlight. That evening, Krista Woods said, she was outside when a "car barrels out, almost running us over. The window rolls down and a woman asks me if I knew that the signs were against South Riding rules. When I told her, 'Yes,' she yelled that I was a 'stupid idiot.' "
The Woodses, who are moving to Ashburn, did some research and concluded that they could extend the sign removal process to as much as 30 days by appealing the homeowners association's decision. So they decided not to take down the signs until after the election.
The dirty looks have continued, but the couple have received some support.
The Woodses' nanny, Motalane Tseptse, a huge fan of Barack Obama's, recently had a party at her employers' home. Knowing that many Obama supporters would be attending, Krista Woods asked whether Tseptse wanted her to take down the signs for the evening. "No," Tseptse said, "I'm proud of what you're doing."
The Woodses' next-door neighbors, Lisa and Chris Romano, agreed.
"It's their property. They should be able to put up signs," Lisa Romano said, adding, "We still love them, even though they are voting for the wrong candidate."
Going Green in Cascades
I thought I'd highlight a community that is striving to make its neck of the woods a "greener" place to live. I spoke a few days ago with Cascades general manager Martha Kaczmarsky, who shared with me some of the ways that residents are trying to reduce the community's carbon footprint.
A handful of residents, Kaczmarsky said, formed the Cascades Green Team in March. The group's goal is to educate the area's approximately 6,000 households about ways to save energy and protect the environment.
The Green Team meets at 7:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of every month at the Lowes Island Community Center to swap ideas and brainstorm. Through the homeowners association's newsletter, the group shares conservation tips with neighbors.
The Green Team was instrumental in getting residents the larger 46-gallon recycling bins with wheels and lids, which make hauling plastic, glass, aluminum and newspaper a little easier, Kaczmarsky said.
This month, the group organized a Green Expo, at which public and private vendors were invited to share information about their energy-efficient services and products. Some of the organizations in attendance were Home Depot, Loudoun Water, Con-Serve Industries, the Pedal Shop and Standard Solar.
In addition to exhibit booth information, the event featured giveaways of reusable shopping bags and compact fluorescent light bulbs. Attendees also got a chance to see firsthand the homeowners association-approved rain barrel, the community's new recycling bins and an in-home kitchen composter demonstration.
Next on the Green Team's agenda is a community-wide cleanup from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 2.
In the future, the group wants to help certify Cascades as a wildlife habitat through the National Wildlife Federation, and there are plans to organize community-wide activities in recognition of nationwide observances such as Bike-to-Work Day, Arbor Day and, of course, Earth Day.
LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2008
DISTRIBUTION: Loudoun County
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Erica Garman; The Morning Glory papery shop in the Broadlands Village Center is going out of business.
IMAGE; By Val Cavalheri; Krista Woods and her husband put political signs in their yard in South Riding, but their homeowners association said they must be removed.
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The Washington Post
October 26, 2008 Sunday
Suburban Edition
Mailed Ads Have Become Mostly Negative, Experts Say
BYLINE: Eli Saslow; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A13
They raise money through text messages and release videos directly to the Internet, but Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain are relying on the old-fashioned U.S. Postal Service to deliver that staple of a presidential campaign's final weeks: the attack ad.
During the past month, the two presidential campaigns and their allies have bombarded voters in swing states with one contemptuous brochure after the next. A review of two-dozen direct-mail advertisements sent on behalf of Obama or McCain documents a below-the-radar battle in which the public message of the candidates becomes something more spiteful, more exaggerated and often more ominous.
Registered voters in Virginia received a flier from the state's Democratic Party warning that McCain "is hiding something he doesn't want us to know." Similarly, the Republican National Committee sent half a dozen swing states mail adorned with the slogan "Barack Obama: Not who you think he is."
McCain and Obama disparage the opposing side's attacks as unfair even as they approve more mailings of their own because direct mail has a 30-year history of swaying voters late in elections. By targeting brochures to specific kinds of voters in specific neighborhoods, politicians free themselves from the burdens of advertising to a mass audience on television, marketing and campaign experts said. Such ads can be more negative. They can be more alarmist.
"It's really a matter of 'the more emotional you are, the more rabid you are; the more extreme you are, the better it will work,' " said Richard Armstrong, a political-advertising expert who wrote a book about direct mail. "It's really just a matter of getting people's attention in their homes, where they live, and making sure it's something they'll remember. You want to get them angry."
Direct mail has influenced political campaigns ever since Richard Viguerie started compiling mailing lists by hand for conservative groups in the late 1960s, and its influence has grown steadily. In the last 20 years, experts said, direct-mail campaigning has become predominantly negative because candidates find it less damaging to their image to make attacks through the mail than on TV. Mail has become, Viguerie said, "kind of the country cousin of television or radio, your typically more glamorous forms of advertising."
So, in a campaign where few advertisements have qualified as glamorous -- a study by the Wisconsin Advertising Project showed McCain's ads are 74 percent negative, compared with 60 percent of Obama's -- direct mail has turned particularly ugly.
"The one advantage is you can get a really nasty piece of mail into the household, and it may well be passed around," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "Letters are rare enough now that people actually look at them and pay more attention. A good message in the mail is going to stand out."
The Republican National Committee designed a series of mailers that essentially ignore McCain and his policies. Instead, each flier takes a standard attack against Obama -- that he's a vapid celebrity; that he's weak on terrorism -- and escalates it.
In New Mexico, voters opened their mailboxes to find a picture of Obama under the Sunset Boulevard sign in Hollywood with the message, "Obama put Hollywood above America." In Ohio, the RNC included an explicit-content-style warning in a bold, red font -- the story you are about to read is graphic and shocking, but true . . . -- before exaggerating Obama's stance on a type of late-term abortion its opponents call "partial-birth abortion."
The North Carolina Republican State Executive Committee sent a picture of Obama next to this quote: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Those words were not spoken by Obama but by Bill Ayers, the former 1960s radical whom Obama met years later in Chicago. The brochure left the quote unattributed.
In perhaps most controversial mailing, the RNC sent a flier to voters in Virginia and Missouri that depicts the nose of an airplane inched next to the glass exterior of a building. The brochure warns: "Terrorists don't care who they hurt," but "Barack Obama think terrorists just need a good talking to." When a reporter asked McCain about the ad last week, he said he "absolutely" supports it and thinks it revealed one of his opponent's shortcomings.
It probably surprised McCain when Obama decided to send the terrorist ad to his network of supporters Thursday morning. In a mass e-mail, Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, included a picture of the ad and requested that Democrats donate $25 to Obama's campaign to "push back." He included a link to a page on the Obama Web site that read:
"John McCain is trying to win this election by scaring voters with truly vile attacks . . . We cannot let McCain take the low road all the way to the White House."
But Democrats have traveled a similar path. According to Democratic mailings, McCain is a "disaster for healthcare" and an opponent of equal working rights for women. The Virginia State Democratic Party sent out one flier asserting that McCain's campaign is run by "seven Washington lobbyists."
The AFL-CIO, which supports Obama, has sent more than 57 million pieces of political mail during this campaign in an effort it refers to as the "largest and most targeted" in its history. The organization stuffs mailboxes in 21 battleground states -- it added West Virginia to the list last week -- after concentrating on 13 states for the 2004 election.
The ads are the result of a sophisticated program the AFL-CIO launched in 2003. Each ad is first sent to test group of 20,000 union members, and the AFL-CIO chooses the most effective ads and sends them to the union audience most likely to be influenced by them. Most of the ads have been negative. One refers to the "Bush/McCain financial crisis." Another outlines a three-point McCain economic plan that the candidate himself would probably take issue with: "Send jobs overseas. Put Wall Street first. Ignore Main Street."
"We can now be sure that what we're sending out is what will be most effective," said Mike Podhorzer, the deputy political director for AFL-CIO who oversees the mailing program. "If you use direct mail the right way, it can be four or fives times more influential than ever."
LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 26, 2008 Sunday
Regional Edition
Obama's Huge Haul Should End This Fight
SECTION: OUTLOOK; Pg. B01
On Wednesday night, Sen. Barack Obama plans to air a half-hour campaign commercial in prime time on at least three television networks. Whether people click right past it or blame the campaign for a slightly delayed World Series Game 6 or interfering with an episode of "The New Adventures of Old Christine," the ads -- said to cost at least $1 million per network -- are an imposing show of the financial strength of the Obama campaign, which has raised more than $600 million for the primaries and general election combined.
The most extraordinary development in this year's election may well be the Obama fundraising juggernaut. First, the Illinois senator raised and spent record amounts in winning the Democratic nomination. Then, unlike Sen. John McCain, he decided not to take a taxpayer subsidy to run his general election campaign. Under the law, each major-party candidate had the option of accepting almost $85 million in tax dollars, with one big hitch: Except for a separate fund for legal and accounting expenses, that would be all he could spend. Before Obama, no major candidate had ever turned down this subsidy. Early in his campaign, he said he would take the subsidy and limit his spending if McCain would do the same. But as it became apparent during Obama's primary bid that he was raising money like no candidate had before, he decided to forgo public financing and its accompanying spending limit. He gambled that he could raise and spend more money from private sources. And has he ever.
That's fine by me. Obama's epic fundraising should put to rest all the shibboleths about campaign finance reform -- that it is needed to prevent corruption, that it equalizes the playing field, or that tax subsidies are needed to prevent corruption.
Don't expect those misguided efforts to change the system to end here, though. While Obama is benefiting from a fundraising advantage this year, in most elections since the 1960s, Republicans have held a spending advantage. Democrats always complained that that was unfair. Where are they now? Meanwhile, don't be surprised if some Republicans suddenly become champions of "reform" after this election.
In early September, basing my estimate on Obama's best primary fundraising months, I predicted that he would outspend McCain, but not by a substantial amount. I estimated that Obama could raise somewhere in the neighborhood of $140 million for the general election, which, after deducting fundraising expenses and accounting for the $15 million or so that McCain could raise for his legal and accounting fund, would give Obama a real financing edge of about $25 million -- not insignificant, but not huge, especially given that he would have to devote time to fundraising in states such as California and New York while McCain was campaigning in battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. It seemed like a good bet at the time, but then I picked the Tigers to win the American League this year.
In September alone, Obama raised more than $150 million, giving him roughly $225 million for the general election -- before we add in any of his October fundraising. McCain is limited to his $84.1 million government subsidy. Like most observers, I was left slack-jawed by Obama's September cash haul. I served as chairman of the Federal Election Commission in 2004, when George W. Bush and John F. Kerry shattered every previous fundraising record to raise a combined total of $696 million -- something it looks like Obama will surpass all on his own just four years later. I've studied all the great fundraisers of the past, from William McKinley to Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. American politics has never seen anything remotely like this before.
As a Republican, I am not thrilled to watch a Democrat so vastly outspend my party's nominee. But why is Obama's record haul unsettling? Other than partisanship, is there anything wrong with Obama raising and spending record sums?
I don't think so, but that's not necessarily true of the fundraising boom's biggest beneficiary. In theory, Obama thinks something is wrong -- he claims to support campaign finance "reform," including more limits on private contributions and support for taxpayer-funded campaigns. But sometimes, actions speak louder than words. Much louder.
We are constantly told by reform advocates (including, in the past, Obama) that large contributions corrupt the candidates. Indeed, Obama has called money "the original sin" in politics. But the Democratic nominee obviously doesn't feel corrupted by the contributions to his effort. Indeed, campaign manager David Plouffe has said that the campaign is "proud" of the donors who constitute "the backbone" of the campaign. Plouffe and others argue that the reason Obama's fundraising machine doesn't pose a threat of corruption is that his campaign is somehow different: Contributions to Obama's campaign come from millions of small donors, not from "fat cats."
But this is not the full picture. Obama has indeed attracted record numbers of small contributors, many giving just a few dollars over the Internet. By the end of October, however, the Obama campaign will almost certainly have raised more money in contributions of $200 or more than any previous presidential candidate has raised in total contributions of any size. Here's another key comparison: A greater percentage of Obama's funds have come from donors contributing more than $200 than the percentage of funds President Bush raised from such donors in his 2000 and 2004 campaigns. Don't think $200 is a "large" contribution? Well, Obama is also likely to raise twice as much money in contributions of $1,000 or more than any previous candidate in history. In short, if every small contribution, however defined, were taken away from the Obama campaign, he would still have raised more money in large contributions than any candidate before -- by a very substantial margin. Yet Obama isn't worried about any corrupting effects of all this cash, and neither are his supporters, who continue to open their wallets.
Another concern that some campaign finance reform advocates have is simple inequality. It's just not fair, goes the argument, for one candidate to spend so much more than the other. Oddly, this conflicts with another argument we frequently hear, that a candidate's financial support should reflect his or her popularity. But however one looks at it, the inequality doesn't really seem to bother Obama. After all, he could solve any cash imbalance immediately by deciding to limit his spending. Not much chance of that.
Some object that Obama simply must spend more to offset attacks from "outside groups," such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose ads helped sink Kerry back in 2004. But this is not true either. In fact, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, groups supporting the Democratic candidate have spent more than groups opposing him, while groups supporting McCain have been outspent by groups opposing him. In other words, "outside" groups only tip the scales further in Obama's favor.
Others note that the Republican National Committee is outspending the Democratic National Committee. This is true, but even with that difference included, Obama is still outspending McCain by a sizeable margin.
Obviously, given a choice, Obama thinks that it is more important that he get his message out to the American people as often as possible than that he and McCain spend an equal amount of money. And so do his supporters. September's amazing fundraising totals will hardly persuade Obama backers to start making contributions to McCain in order to show their commitment to equality.
This suggests that partisanship, rather than principle, is what drives most support for campaign finance reform. When one side is being outspent, its partisans naturally want to limit the fundraising of the other side. But if we really are concerned about "fairness," the best approach is probably to remove restrictions on fundraising altogether, rather than limit the speech of those who are raising money successfully.
Campaign finance laws never affect all candidates equally. For example, the one area where McCain has an advantage this cycle is the fundraising success of the RNC versus the DNC. But because of the byzantine campaign finance rules (for which he bears considerable responsibility), the Arizona senator cannot take full advantage of that edge. Due to the rules, the RNC can only use a portion of those funds to campaign for its presidential nominee. This is illogical and, this year, increases the inequality in campaign spending.
We should consider it a healthy thing when Americans support their political beliefs with their dollars. What we see in this election is that contributions don't really cause "corruption" and that we don't really want the government deciding who has spoken too much and who has not spoken enough. If Obama's fundraising shows us the emptiness of the arguments for campaign finance "reform," he will have done us a great service, in spite of himself.
Bradley A. Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, is a professor of law at Capital University and chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics.
LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 26, 2008 Sunday
Regional Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. B07
New Hampshire may be the only state where you can turn on the television and see a commercial in which the Democratic candidate for the Senate lavishes praise on President Bush.
Jeanne Shaheen, the former governor now running for the Senate, expresses her heartfelt support for the war in Iraq and the Bush tax cuts, before repeating the line, "I'll stand with President Bush."
The quotes are authentic but horribly out of date. They were uttered in 2002, the first time Shaheen tangled with a young John Sununu for the Senate. Six years after he won that race -- barely -- Sununu is fighting for his political life in a climate far less benign for Republicans. His ad, called "Remember," is designed to raise doubts about Shaheen in the minds of the many independent voters who clearly want to use their Senate vote to send a message of disapproval to Bush.
When they held their first televised debate at New England College here the other night, it was evident that this grudge fight, now six years old and counting, has exhausted the patience and good will of both candidates. They started quarreling with the first question -- Sununu supporting the financial rescue package and Shaheen condemning it as a giveaway to Wall Street. And they never stopped. When Sununu tried to detail the changes he'd supported in the bailout to help consumers and investors, Shaheen cut him off. "That's so much Washington mumbo jumbo," she said.
Their fight has drawn heavy outside money from both parties, as Democrats strive for a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority and as Republicans try to save one of their bright future stars. Shaheen, 61, a New Hampshire campaign manager for Gary Hart and President Jimmy Carter before she won the first of her three terms as governor, is exceptionally well connected with Democratic powers.
But Sununu, 44, whose father served three terms as governor before becoming George H.W. Bush's White House chief of staff, began building his own networks as a three-term member of the House. In the Senate, he has traveled the world with John McCain.
This is a year that has proved to be a severe test for both McCain -- the winner of the 2000 and 2008 Republican New Hampshire presidential primaries -- and Sununu.
Demographic changes, particularly the migration of educated high-tech workers from Massachusetts and other states, and the popularity of Democratic Gov. John Lynch, have given the Democrats a new lease on life. In 2006, they took both House seats from the GOP and captured both houses of the Legislature. Though Barack Obama was upset by Hillary Clinton in January's primary, he never shut down his operations here -- and has a formidable organization.
A poll in the Concord Monitor this week showed Obama with a seven-point margin over McCain and Shaheen with an identical lead over Sununu, though the Senate race tightens when only those firmly committed are counted.
Dante Scala, the head of the political science department at the University of New Hampshire and an expert on the state's politics, commented that Sununu was "trying to climb a pretty steep mountain" even before the economic tailspin began last month. "He hoped to use her record on taxes as governor and her opposition to nuclear power and offshore drilling to bring her down.
"But the economy just knocked him into a ditch, and he's trying to figure out how to climb out."
Sununu, like McCain, has struggled to convince voters that while he voted 90 percent of the time for Bush policies, he really is independent. He cites his opposition to an early Bush energy bill and his successful fight to add civil liberties protections to the Patriot Act.
He has a fan club on both sides of the aisle and is talked about in Republican circles as a potential presidential candidate.
The youngest member of the Senate has found himself running for reelection in one of the toughest years that Republicans have faced since 1974 -- when Democrats elected their big class of "Watergate babies."
His timetable is in serious jeopardy.
davidbroder@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2008
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Coming to grips with Iran's regime
BYLINE: By Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: SUNDAY READ; SOLUTIONS: TWO VIEWS; M13
The next U.S. president has an excellent opportunity to set things right with Iran and achieve what has eluded his five predecessors, that is, a normalization of relations with Tehran. Already a tiny step in this direction has been taken by the outgoing Bush administration's reported readiness to seek a diplomatic, i.e., consular, office in Iran; if implemented, this will create the positive momentum for Bush's successor to explore the necessary follow-up steps - to be chosen from the panoply of policy options on Iran.
Iran, a country of 70 million straddled between two energy hubs of Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea, has a vested interest in regional stability, considered as a sine qua non for economic progress both for Iran as well as its wealth of 15 neighbors and "near neighbors." A tough neighborhood wrought with failed states, terrorism, drug traffic, inter- and intra-state tensions, Iran's region in the post 9/11 context also features an unprecedented zone of shared and or parallel interests between Iran and the United States, warranting their engagement with each other on Afghanistan, Iraq, as well as on such issues as energy security, narcotics and the twin threats of Taliban and Sunni terrorism presently threatening the stability of Iran's nuclear neighbor to the east, Pakistan.
Unfortunately, instead of capitalizing on those mutual interests, the Bush administration alienated Iran by a combination of missteps ranging from incorporating Iran in the "axis of evil" discourse, to ignoring Iran's constructive support for the new, U.S.-backed regimes in Baghdad and Kabul, and repeatedly rebuffing Iran's overture for a comprehensive resolution of the outstanding issues on the U.S.-Iran boilerplate. Yet, in light of the gravity of regional security issues today, the next U.S. president cannot afford to recycle the egregious errors of his predecessor, or to simply inherit Bush's Iran policy without transforming it.
Fact is today Iran is ready for a comprehensive dialogue with the U.S. and various top Iranian officials, including Saeed Jalili, Iran's nuclear negotiator, or Ali Larijani, the powerful speaker of Parliament (Majlis), have explicitly yearned for a "new framework" for dialogue to "resolve all issues" since, to paraphrase Jalili, "the nuclear issue is not the only issue." Tehran's desire for a "grand bargain" with the U.S. is already implicit in Iran's package of proposals for solving regional issues that was submitted to the "5 +1" nations last year. Ignored by the Bush administration, a serious, and early, consideration of Iran's package by the future occupant of the Oval Office can break significant ice in the glacier of U.S.-Iran hostility conceivably as early as next year.
What Iran wants is respect, a hitherto absent recognition by Washington of Iran's important role and position in the Middle East and a new language of U.S. diplomacy toward Iran that is not tainted with the destructive semantics of coercion and threat.
Coercive diplomacy simply doesn't work with Iran and, instead, the parameters of an alternative persuasive diplomacy is called for that recognizes the importance of political psychology and reciprocal confidence-building initiatives. The latter could come about as a result of an interactive process centered on U.S.-Iran "expert working groups" devoted to specific policy areas such as the nuclear standoff, regional security, trade and the like.
Such a healthy new approach, sadly missing so far, can yield positive results, for instance, by narrowing the security conceptual gaps between Tehran and Washington for an "incident at sea" agreement aimed at avoiding accidental warfare between the U.S. and Iranian navies crowding the narrow channels of Persian Gulf. In turn, such incremental steps forward, when taken in tandem with each other along the wide spectrum of policy issues on the U.S.-Iran agenda, can have salutary effects on the remaining divisive issues between the two countries, including the nuclear issue.
On the contrary, in light of the stated position of both presidential hopefuls, John McCain and Barack Obama, to "toughen" the Iran sanctions once in office, the U.S. next Iran policy is already in the danger of being predetermined by ad hoc and incremental steps that are not anchored in a new strategic framework and, worse, denote policy continuity with the past precisely when discontinuity in the style, content, and orientation of the U.S. approach toward Iran should have the upper hands.
A successful U.S. Iran policy must show sensitivity to Iran's (national security) concerns and preferences instead of ignoring them. From Tehran's point of view, for too long the U.S. has allowed other countries to play with the "Iran card." That needs to stop, and the U.S. own intrinsic geopolitical and other interests should act as the decisive factors driving a new U.S.-Iran policy.
Nor does the road from Tehran to Washington travel through Tel Aviv, contrary to the conventional wisdom in Washington. Rather, politicians in Israel and the U.S. must realize that any noticeable improvement in U.S.-Iran relations will impact Iran's stance on the Middle East peace issues and, therefore, it is a sheer policy error to put the cart before the horse and demand certain changes in Iran's external behavior that can likely come about more readily once Iran experiences a real change of U.S. behavior toward it.
The blind knot of U.S.-Iran diplomacy can only be opened with the dexterous hands of persuasive diplomacy instead of the raw teeth of coercive diplomacy. To invoke the Persian aphorism, do not open a knot with teeth when it should be with hands.
Timing is critical, however, and the next administration should not be saddled with the past mistake of benign early neglect followed by belated initiatives at the 11th hour in office that history proves never works. In addition to being persuasive and creative, the main contour of this policy should also be bold and even experimental, e.g., exploring the various nuances of a time-bound "freeze for freeze" option with respect to Iran's uranium-enrichment program, without necessarily pegging this to a permanent suspension.
Not a "dialogue without preconditions" but rather a structured dialogue that transpires through the prism of international law and the strictures of nonproliferation regime. By all indications, Tehran is ready for such a dialogue, and hopefully, so will Washington pretty soon.
* Kaveh L. Afrasiabi is a former advisor to Iran's nuclear negotiation team (2004-05) and the author of books on Iran's foreign and nuclear policies.
LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2008
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Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
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Obama mocks rival for shunning Bush;
McCain again cites Biden gaffe
BYLINE: By S.A. Miller and Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. Barack Obama returned to the presidential campaign trail Saturday promising to pull the country out of an economic tailspin and accusing his rival, Republican Sen. John McCain, of feigning differences with President Bush in a desperate bid to sway voters 10 days before the presidential election.
While Mr. McCain attempted to turn a gaffe by Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. against the Democratic ticket, Mr. Obama mocked his opponent's attempt to distance himself from Mr. Bush and the past eight years of a Republican administration.
Both men spent Saturday campaigning in Western swing states that narrowly backed Mr. Bush in 2004 but are tipping toward the Democrat this year.
Mr. Obama referred to a McCain interview with The Washington Times last week in which the Arizonan criticized President Bush and the formerly Republican-controlled Congress on a litany of issues, saying, "We just let things get completely out of hand."
"That's right, John McCain has been really angry about George Bush's economic policies - except during the primaries, when he said we've made 'great progress economically' under George Bush," Mr. Obama said. "Or just last month, when he said that the 'fundamentals of our economy are strong.' In fact, John McCain is so opposed to George Bush's policies that he voted with him 90 percent of the time for the past eight years.
"That's right, he decided to really stick it to him - 10 percent of the time," Mr. Obama told the cheering rally of about 11,000 supporters at a baseball park at the University of Nevada at Reno.
At an afternoon rally in Las Vegas, Mr. Obama said Mr. McCain's recent rebuke of the Bush administration was "like Tonto attacking the Lone Ranger."
Campaigning in New Mexico, Mr. McCain again referred to remarks last week by Mr. Biden, in which he told campaign donors in Seattle that enemy nations would concoct an international crisis to test Mr. Obama.
"Mark my words," Mr. Biden said. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here, if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
But Mr. McCain said he would "test" enemy countries when elected president, rather than the other way around
"I'm going to test them; they're not going to test me," Mr. McCain told a rally in Albuquerque, N.M.
The senator from Arizona has seized on the Biden remarks as evidence that Mr. Obama would make the country less safe, including devoting much of his campaign stump speech to responding.
Mr. Obama has said the famously gaffe-prone Mr. Biden was just using one of his "rhetorical flourishes," and that he thinks either new president would be tested by enemy nations.
Mr. McCain has grown bolder in distancing himself from the unpopular president. On Saturday, his campaign explicitly linked Mr. Obama to Bush policies.
"Americans would have been better off if Barack Obama hadn't joined with the president to vote for virtually every Bush spending bill, voting for the Bush-Cheney energy bill and doubling down on the Bush administration legacy of out-of-control spending," said campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. "Obama is just more of the same."
Mr. Obama laughed at such claims, noting Saturday during his Reno speech that Mr. Bush already had voted - for Mr. McCain.
"Senator McCain has been throwing everything he's got at us, hoping something will stick," said the senator from Illinois.
Polls show Mr. Obama leading by as much as five percentage points in Nevada and 13 points in New Mexico, where he was scheduled to attend a rally late Saturday evening.
Mr. Obama continues his Western swing Sunday in Colorado. Other than Bill Clinton in 1992, Colorado hasn't backed a Democrat for president since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. But Mr. Obama consistently leads state polls by four or five percentage points, with one poll giving him a 13-point lead.
He is also slightly ahead in a half-dozen other swing states that usually vote Republican in presidential races, cementing his front-runner status at this late stage of the campaign.
Mr. McCain has used the polling to play up the "underdog" angle. On Saturday, he ridiculed Mr. Obama after the New York Times reported that the Democrat's transition-team chief, John D. Podesta, has already drafted a sample inaugural address for Mr. Obama.
"An awful lot of voters are still undecided, but he's decided for them, 'Well, why wait?' " Mr. McCain said.
"I want him to save that manuscript of his inaugural address and donate it to the Smithsonian, so they can put it right next to the Chicago paper that says, 'Dewey Defeats Truman,' " Mr. McCain said, referring to the presidential race of 1948.
Mr. McCain also has tried to gain ground by criticizing Mr. Obama for his "socialist" tax plan that would raise taxes on the wealthy and on small-business owners such as "Joe the Plumber."
The Republican presidential nominee has hammered Mr. Obama for pursuing a socialist agenda since the Democrat told Joseph Wurzelbacher, an Ohio plumber worried about higher taxes if he buys a plumbing business, that "when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
Mr. McCain and the Republican vice-presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, mention "Joe the Plumber" often on the stump, and a new TV ad features a series of voters saying, "I'm Joe the Plumber." For the McCain campaign, Mr. Wurzelbacher has become an "everyman" symbol for small-business owners who will be hit by Mr. Obama's "soak-the-rich" tax plan.
Mr. McCain also warned that a Democratic Congress, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, together with a President Obama, would let the Democratic Party's worst instincts reign unchecked.
"But that is exactly what's going to happen if the Democrats have total control of Washington. We can't let that happen. Are you ready for Obama, Pelosi and Reid?" said the senator from Arizona.
Mr. Obama, who took Friday off from campaigning to visit his ailing grandmother in Hawaii, returned to the campaign stump Saturday to rail against the country's financial woes, which he blamed on the Bush administration and vowed to fix with populist remedies such as middle-class tax relief and New Deal-style public works projects.
"There's been a lot of talk about taxes in this campaign. And the truth is, my opponent and I are both proposing tax cuts," Mr. Obama said. "The difference is, he wants to give a $700,000 tax cut to the average Fortune 500 CEO. I want to put a middle-class tax cut in the pockets of 95 percent of workers and their families. My opponent doesn't want you to know this, but under my plan, tax rates will actually be less than they were under Ronald Reagan."
Mr. Obama said the tax cuts would benefit "98 percent of small-business owners, and that includes plumbers."
The Obama campaign also released a two-minute television ad to run in key states that echoes a famous rhetorical question from decades ago, one credited with helping Mr. Reagan "close the deal" over President Carter in 1980. "Will our country be better off four years from now?" the ad asks.
At his Las Vegas rally, the candidate told his audience not to be convinced by any McCain attempt to distance himself from Mr. Bush.
"We are not going to let George Bush pass the torch to John McCain, and we are not going to let John McCain hide from his 26 years" supporting Republican policies, Mr. Obama said at Bonanza High School.
As he has at each campaign stop in red states this week, Mr. Obama worked to energize his supporters and drive vote totals in areas such as Reno, where he has a strong lead. A Politico/Insider Advantage poll this week showed Mr. Obama with a 10-point lead in Reno, but tied statewide with Mr. McCain at 47 percent.
"We are going to have to struggle and fight for each of these 10 days," he told the Reno audience. "We know change doesn't come without a fight."
The Obama campaign announced Saturday that the candidate will make his first joint appearance with former President Bill Clinton later this week, at a rally in Orlando, Fla. Mr. Clinton is the only Democratic presidential candidate to have won Florida in the past 30 years.
* S.A. Miller traveled with the Obama campaign in Nevada and New Mexico. Stephen Dinan traveled with the McCain campaign in New Mexico.
LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2008
GRAPHIC: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama addresses a rally in Reno, Nev., Saturday. He likened his rival's attempt to distance himself from President Bush to "Tonto attacking the Lone Ranger." [Photo by Associated Press]
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain speaks at a campaign rally at the New Mexico State Fairgrounds in Albuquerque Saturday. He compared this year's presidential race to that of 1948. [Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 25, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Obama is right about Afghanistan Obama is right about Afghanistan
By ROSA BROOKS
IS BARACK Obama a dishonorable troop-hater?
According to John McCain and Sarah Palin, you betcha. As one recent McCain ad puts it, Obama "says our troops in Afghanistan are 'just air-raiding villages and killing civilians.' How dishonorable."
But what exactly is wrong with decrying military tactics that cause needless civilian casualties and undermine our counterinsurgency efforts? What's wrong with denouncing the stupid strategic decisions that forced the adoption of those tragic and counterproductive tactics in the first place?
That's what Obama was doing in New Hampshire in August 2007, when he made the comments the McCain-Palin team has so enthusiastically ripped out of context. He was arguing that the diversion of U.S. troops to Iraq had had devastating consequences for the efforts in Afghanistan. We need more troops in Afghanistan, Obama asserted, so that U.S. forces won't need to rely so much on airstrikes as an anti-insurgency tool.
"We've got to get the job done there," he said. "And that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there."
Not exactly eloquent, but Obama's fundamental point is unassailable. With so many U.S. troops bogged down in Iraq, our troops in Afghanistan are spread dangerously thin. As the Afghan insurgency picks up steam, overwhelmed U.S. ground troops increasingly call in close-air-support bomb attacks.
These airstrikes are far more deadly for Afghan civilians than U.S. ground attacks, for the simple reason that whereas a soldier can usually tell the difference between an unarmed child and an insurgent, a bomb dropped from thousands of feet up can't. So far this year, at least 395 Afghan civilians have been killed in NATO airstrikes.
Should we care?
The mothers of dead Afghan children and the wives of dead Afghan men certainly care. And we should, too, both for moral reasons and for self-interested reasons.
Again, it's classic counterinsurgency doctrine: If your anti-insurgency tactics have the unintended consequence of killing innocent civilians, you're going to drive more civilians into the arms of the insurgency, thus undermining your own efforts.
Is it "dishonorable" to say that we need to change our approach in Afghanistan so that we'll rely less on airstrikes, cause fewer unintended civilian casualties and therefore increase our chances of a successful counterinsurgency campaign?
If it is, Obama will have plenty of company in the "dishonorable" corner. He'll be joined there by Gens. David H. Petraeus and David D. McKiernan, who have repeatedly voiced nearly identical concerns.
Rosa Brooks, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, writes a weekly op-ed column for the Los Angeles Times.
LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 25, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
the fine line between business and politics
SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. D1
By Philip Walzer
The Virginian-Pilot
For Bee Fox, the office adornment she's had since February is a mood-lifter.
"It gives me hope," Fox said. "It makes me happy to drive up in the morning and see my Obama sign."
Morgan Anton wears a McCain-Palin sticker at work and has nine campaign signs.
"I listen to my customers; they tell me everything," Anton said. "Why shouldn't I tell them who I am? I want people to know that I'm a Republican."
Fox, the regional manager of the Tranzon Fox auction company in Virginia Beach, and Anton, the owner of Jonathon's Tavern in Norfolk, belong to the minority of businesspeople who unashamedly expose their political persuasions in the workplace.
Most businesspeople, though, steer clear of political endorsements on their property, not wanting to risk alienating customers or candidates.
In Prince George's County, Md., a hotel faced threats of a boycott after it put up a pro-John McCain message on its marquee, The Washington Post reported. Locally, though, businesses that display campaign signs voice few worries.
"The great thing is, you can express your political views without fear in this country," said Fox, whose Obama sign hangs on the front window.
"Elected officials know how we feel about things," real estate developer Michael Barrett said. "I don't think a sign by itself is going to cause any problem."
Barrett, chief executive officer of Runnymede Corp., has allowed signs to be placed at eight properties in Virginia Beach and Norfolk for Beach mayoral candidate Will Sessoms, City Council hopeful Glenn Davis and Democratic congressional candidate Glenn Nye.
Barrett said the signs went up only at locations with more than one tenant. "There's no implication that all of those tenants support the candidate."
In Suffolk, which is gearing up for its first mayoral election, Bert Young took a multi-partisan approach.
"Suffolk is a small town," said Young, co-owner of Young Properties, a real estate company on Main Street. "We pretty much know all of the mayoral candidates."
So he allowed any who asked to put signs on his property.
As of Friday, three had taken him up on the offer: Mike Debranski, Linda Johnson and Tom Powell.
They are accompanied by a better-known name. With all the local signs popping up, "we decided, 'What the heck, we'll put one up for president,'\" Young said. So he added one for his preferred candidate, McCain.
Most of the signs that have sprouted at businesses are for municipal candidates, who tend to be more eager for local exposure.
E. Andre Brown, owner of E. Andre Brown Funeral Establishment on Holland Road, said he has allowed signs for the two Virginia Beach candidates who canvassed him - Sessoms and Georgia Allen, who is running for City Council.
Brown said his company is a client of TowneBank, where Sessoms is the Virginia Beach president. "I did it because of his views and the issues he deals with, more so than we bank at TowneBank," he said.
Sessoms said about 300 businesses had put up his signs.
"In my mind, it's quite critical; I'm running against someone who has tremendous name identification," he said, referring to Meyera Oberndorf, the mayor for 20 years. "How do you overcome it? You do everything you can."
Another mayoral candidate, John Moss, said the signs "help put your name out with new voters."
For rival Scott Taylor, "I think that the grass roots - talking to people and shaking their hands - is much more important than signs."
Moss estimated he had 65 signs at businesses. Taylor, who said his count was in the "double digits," said he'd been rebuffed by some "who were skeptical about talking to me because they have an affiliation with TowneBank."
Sessoms said he would not discourage bank customers from supporting his opponents: "Banking and politics are separate. I would never, ever do that, and if I did, my job would be in jeopardy, as it should be."
Oberndorf has no signs anywhere. That's intentional.
She has supported revisions in city laws to reduce the permissible size of business signs. "I didn't want to be a hypocrite," Oberndorf said. "It wasn't right for me to make laws that I would not observe myself."
If she wins, she said, she will not hold grudges against businesses that backed her rivals. But she did acknowledge feeling "a little strange if I go into a commercial place of business" with an opponent's sign.
"What that says to me is, 'You're not welcome, and anyone who supports you is not welcome,'\" Oberndorf said. "If I were an entrepreneur, I'd want everyone to come to my place of business and feel at home and respected and valued."
J.T. O'Donnell, a workplace consultant in New Hampshire, said she would not counsel businesses against permitting campaign signs. After all, it could be "good for business and build political connections."
But, she said, businesspeople should know the consequences, which could include discomforting customers and employees who favor another candidate.
Local proprietors who allow candidates' signs said they've gotten no flak inside or outside the office. "For us, it's not really an issue," said Young in Suffolk. "We're not in the business of selling anything."
Likewise, Fox said her office, off Witchduck Road, is visited mostly by mail and delivery people, not customers. Six other people work in the office regularly, she said. One is a McCain supporter, "and we have great discussions. He has never said he is offended by the sign."
Nor should a customer be offended, said Brown, the funeral home owner.
"We provide a service to everyone, Democrat, Republican or independent," he said. "My service should speak for itself. Not who I allow to put up a sign."
Anton, whose Hampton Boulevard bar sits less than a mile from the Norfolk Naval Station, said most of her patrons are Republicans. A few Democrats have told her good-naturedly, "You're going to lose."
Her diplomatic response: "May the best man win."
Inside hang four McCain-Palin and two "Country First" Republican signs. Outside are three McCain-Palin placards. Another, closer to the street, was stolen, she said.
The signs, she said, are fitting in an establishment where political talk is commonplace. During an interview, two customers were debating gun rights within earshot.
"I think people should be more honest about who they are," Anton said. "I'd rather lose some customers than lie to them about who I really am."
Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@ pilotonline.com
LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2008
GRAPHIC: MORT Fryman | The Virginian-Pilot Morgan Anton, shown outside Jonathon's Tavern in Norfolk, has no problem showing a presidential preference. She encourages others to do the same.
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 25, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Not jumping the GOP ship Not jumping the GOP ship
BYLINE: CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
CONTRARIAN THAT I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.
I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe -- neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) -- yelling "Stop!" I will go down with the McCain ship. I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.
First, I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The "erratic" temperament issue, for example. As if McCain's risky and unsuccessful but rational attempt to maneuver his way through the economic tsunami renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks . The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.
Nor will I countenance the "dirty campaign" pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. For months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.
McCain's critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What's astonishing is that Obama was not offended by Ayers.
Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama's most egregious association -- with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.
The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.
Whom do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the last year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of "a world that stands as one"), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as "the tragedy of 9/11," a term more appropriate for a bus accident?
Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the U.S. Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts, but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?
There's just no comparison. Obama's own running mate warned this week that Obama's youth and inexperience will invite a crisis -- indeed a crisis "generated" precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?
How has Obama fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he's been in the Senate? The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.
The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain didn't have to consult his advisers to identify the aggressor.
Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet?
Charles Krauthammer's column is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group. E-mail him at letters@charleskrauthammer.com
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 25, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
NRA may have to bag some Election Day ads opposing Obama
By Julian Walker
The Virginian-Pilot
richmond
The National Rifle Association hopes to deliver anti-Barack Obama advertising blasts to thousands of doorsteps on Election Day.
The Fairfax-based gun lobby has contacted newspapers in Virginia and other battleground states about wrapping their home-delivered products on Nov. 4 in a plastic bag that is said to read: "Vote for Freedom ... Defeat Obama."
That ad proposal was rejected by The Virginian-Pilot.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch leaders initially told employees that the paper intended to accept the ads, according to sources in the company .
But when contacted about it this week, the newspaper's strategic marketing director, Frazier Millner, said the Richmond newspaper "will not run the ad ... for the NRA on Election Day or any other day."
NRA spokeswoman Rachel Parsons declined to discuss the plastic bags or media strategies other than to say the group uses "innovative means of getting our message out, in addition to traditional TV, radio and print ads."
"Those things will be visible in the coming weeks," Parsons said.
The NRA has endorsed Republican presidential nominee John McCain, and the group's political action committee has established the www.gunbanobama.com Web site, which say s Obama, a Democrat, "would be the most anti-gun president in American history."
This season, the group has sponsored print and video advertisements opposing Obama; anti-Obama independent expenditures by the NRA this cycle total $1.8 million, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
The Obama campaign describes NRA claims as false attacks that distort the Illinois senator's record as a supporter of Second Amendment rights.
Although the plastic sleeves are a somewhat unorthodox vehicle for political ads, this would not be the first time the NRA has used that tactic.
A similar technique was used by the gun lobby in Montana in 2006 to support a Republican seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate.
That year, The Associated Press reported, seven or eight Montana newspapers were draped in plastic covers expressing support for Sen. Conrad Burns in the days leading up to an election he ultimately lost.
The current plastic bag campaign is something of a departure for the NRA, which more often targets gun-owning voters with its political messages, said Brigham Young University political science professor Quin Monson.
"In the past, the NRA has been particularly effective about mobilizing their members and like-minded individuals," said Monson, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at the Utah school. "What they risk here is motivating someone who is for gun control to get out and vote for Obama."
The risk for a newspaper that runs the plastic bag ad, according to media ethicist Kelly McBride, is that it may give readers a reason to question its objectivity.
"If your wrap on Election Day is portraying one particular point of view, that's going to be pretty damaging to your credibility," said McBride, ethics group leader for the Poynter Institute, a school for professional journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla.
"I think it would be hard for voters, in that moment, to discern whether this is the paper's point of view or someone else's," she added. "You don't want to do something on Election Day that essentially alienates your readers."
Similar considerations factored into The Pilot's decision to reject the ad, said company business development manager Alan Levenstein.
Because it takes about six weeks to print the plastic bags, permitting a group with one view to purchase that space could deny a group with an opposing view a chance to buy the same space before the election, Levenstein said.
"We want to make sure that we provide equity for all sides, make sure that there is a level playing field," he said. "We want to make sure that we don't look, as a newspaper, that we're endorsing one viewpoint or another."
As a matter of policy, The Pilot would sell space to candidates and interest groups of all persuasions in its print pages, which unlike the plastic bags can accommodate multiple ads in one edition.
The NRA is hardly alone in the effort to deliver partisan messages to the voting public.
Scores of lobbying and issue-advocacy groups from across the political spectrum have spent advertising dollars to influence the outcome on Nov. 4.
"A lot of groups make ads," noted Jacob Neiheisel, deputy director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, a nonpartisan academic research group based at the University of Wisconsin that tracks televised political ads.
In this cycle, ads from outside groups "have been relatively quiet," partly because of the cost to broadcast them, said Neiheisel, which may be one reason that special interests such as the NRA are "focusing on the ground war, where they can get a little more targeting."
Staff writer Warren Fiske contributed to this article.
Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com
the wrap
The National Rifle Association has contacted newspapers in Virginia and other battleground states about wrapping their home-delivered products on Nov. 4 in a plastic bag that is said to read: "Vote for Freedom ... Defeat Obama."
That ad proposal was rejected by The Virginian-Pilot.
LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 25, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Hispanic and black voters in Norfolk, Richmond and Northern Virginia are being targeted by a radio ad campaign by the AFL-CIO featuring celebrities urging citizens to vote.
The ads - in English by rapper Ludacris, reality TV Judge Greg Mathis and "CSI: NY" star Hill Harper and in Spanish by actor Edward James Olmos - will air today through Election Day on urban and Spanish-language stations, according to a news release.
They remind voters to verify their voter registration and polling place ahead of time, bring identification to the polls and stay in line to cast their votes, even if polls close while they are in line.
The ads will air in 13 other markets around the country, including Detroit; Miami; Charlotte, N.C.; Philadelphia; Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio.
2nd House District
drake cash grows
U.S. Rep. Thelma Drake raised slightly more money than challenger Glenn Nye in the final campaign finance report before Election Day.
Drake, a Republican, raised $148,826 between Oct. 1 and Oct. 15, according to the Federal Election Commission. Nye, a Democrat, raised $144,785 over the same period.
Drake, a two-term incumbent, has outraised Nye for the total campaign $1.87 million to $1 million.
She heads into the final stretch with $508,263 on hand, compared with $268,585 for Nye.
- Aaron Applegate
beverage poll
blue cup a winner
Most agree that the unscientific results of the 7-Eleven Cups Standings probably don't mean much, but Hampton Roads customers at the convenience store chose the blue Barack Obama cup over the red John McCain cup.
7-Eleven invited residents to cast a vote with every purchase of a 20-ounce hot beverage. In Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth and Suffolk, 64.6 percent of customers chose the blue Obama cup and 35.4 percent went with McCain. In Hampton Roads, 59.3 percent chose the Obama cup and 40.6 percent went with the red McCain cup, according to 7-Eleven officials. Statewide, Obama won , with 61 percent.
The results are from Oct. 1 to Friday .
- John Hopkins
LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 25, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
McCain hammers Obama on taxes, spending plan
From wire reports
DENVER
Sen. John McCain opened up a fresh line of attack against his presidential rival in Colorado on Friday, saying Sen. Barack Obama's election would give Democrats unchecked authority over the nation's purse strings.
"The answer to a slowing economy is not higher taxes, but that's exactly what's going to happen when the Democrats have total control of Washington," he warned, while also taking a swipe at Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., for suggesting that taxes and spending may need to be increased to deal with the nation's economic crisis. "When he says that, quote, there are, quote, 'a lot of very rich people out there whom we can tax,' it's safe to assume that means you," McCain said.
McCain spent the day in Denver, Colorado Springs and Durango, campaigning in a traditionally Republican state where Obama is leading in the polls and has been flooding the airwaves with advertisements. McCain was accompanied by John Elway, a former Denver Bronco quarterback legendary for fourth-quarter heroics, who told the Denver crowd that he "knows a thing or two about comebacks" and expressed confidence that McCain would defy predictions that he will go down to defeat here.
McCain hammered away at Obama on taxes, spending and the question of whether he is ready to become commander in chief, the subject of a McCain campaign ad released Friday.
"Sen. Obama said yesterday that if you want to know how he would respond in a crisis, look what he's done during his campaign," McCain said. "But we've seen the wrong response from him over and over during this campaign."
McCain noted that Obama "opposed the surge strategy that is bringing us victory in Iraq and will bring us victory in Afghanistan," continuing: "He said he would sit down unconditionally with the world's worst dictators. When Russia invaded Georgia, Sen. Obama said the invaded country should show restraint. He's been wrong on all of these."
The GOP nominee also picked up on new reports of rising foreclosures to sharpen his critique of the administration and Congress for not moving fast enough to help struggling homeowners. McCain wants the federal government to spend up to $300 billion to buy bad mortgages and give homeowners a break, and on Friday morning he appeared to refer to reports that the federal government may start guaranteeing home mortgages.
"Finally Congress and the administration are putting together a plan to address this problem," McCain said. "Let me say: It's about time."
Obama took a day off from campaigning to visit his critically ill grandmother in Hawaii. But two frustrated Republicans popped up to voice concern with their own presidential candidate.
"I would have done things differently the last few weeks," Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"I think McCain's economic and health care plans should have been more vigorously defended, and unfortunately Obama has been able to incorrectly define McCain's plans and ideas," he said.
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge expressed a different concern to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Ridge said the race would have been different in his state, which has 21 electoral votes, if McCain had chosen him as running mate instead of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
"I think we'd be foolish not to admit it publicly," he said .
Ridge later released a written statement saying his remarks had been taken out of context and that he had often praised Palin. He added that the race in Florida would have been different if that state's governor had been placed on the ticket, or in Minnesota similarly. Florida has 27 electoral votes and Minnesota 10. Alaska has three.
This story was compiled from reports by The Washington Post and The Associated Press.
in Hawaii
Sen. Barack Obama took a day off from campaigning to visit his critically ill grandmother in Hawaii.
LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2008
GRAPHIC: Stephan Savoia | The Associated Press Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain campaigns in Colorado on Friday. He said the election of his rival, Sen. Barack Obama, would give Democrats unchecked spending power.
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The Washington Post
October 25, 2008 Saturday
Met 2 Edition
Comedian Becomes Serious Contender;
Democrat Franken Leads Senate Race in Minn.
BYLINE: Paul Kane; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Al Franken settled into the Wagon Wheel Cafe and for 45 uninterrupted minutes talked with a handful of Minnesota farmers about the promise of cellulosic ethanol, the impact of the sinking dollar on crop prices and his pledge to secure a seat on the Agriculture Committee if he is elected to the U.S. Senate.
Then the Democrat worked the diner crowd, shaking hands and asking for support like a seasoned statesman, betraying no hint that he was once a longtime writer and actor on "Saturday Night Live" and a sharp-tongued liberal talk-radio host.
Nevertheless, after Franken left, Jodi Dickey dismissed his candidacy, saying it was "like Tina Fey running for office." But then the undecided voter thought a bit more about the state of the country and reconsidered. "Actually, maybe that's not such a bad idea."
The political climate this year is such that Franken -- best known for starring in an "SNL" skit in which his character stares into a mirror and attempts to reassure himself that, doggone it, people like him -- has pulled ahead in his Senate race against Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.
Just weeks ago, Coleman appeared to be headed for victory, one of a handful of Republicans expected to win in a tough year for the GOP. But then a bad economy turned grim, the public's faith in Congress cratered, and support for Franken started to grow. The latest poll, a University of Wisconsin survey that came out Thursday, showed Franken ahead of Coleman 40 percent to 34 percent, his biggest lead of the race. Independent Dean Barkley was favored by 15 percent of those surveyed.
As the race has tightened, its importance nationally has increased greatly. Leaders of both parties see the contest as one of a critical few that will determine whether Democrats win a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate, so both parties are directing high-profile supporters and millions of dollars to Minnesota.
Officials at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, fearful of a union-friendly Democratic Senate, have dubbed the race "ground zero" in the effort to stop a 60-seat majority. The chamber and its affiliates have spent more than $3 million on ads designed to scare voters about Franken and Democrats, according to sources on both sides.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is on the air with an ad called "Character," in which Franken's past satirical work is attacked for allegedly demeaning women and minorities. An angry Franken is shown on a blood-red screen, pumping his fist at a political rally.
On Franken's side has been Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who has campaigned with him and appears in one of his latest ads. Last month former vice president Al Gore headlined a Franken rally, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has run more than $6 million worth of advertisements, almost all accusing Coleman of being a close ally of the Bush White House, according to an estimate from a Democratic source monitoring media purchases.
On the campaign trail, the race is largely about Franken, with the Democrat trying to convince voters he is a serious candidate and Coleman attempting to cast him as too inexperienced and insincere to help solve their problems.
"Serious times require serious leadership," Coleman told two dozen voters Monday in Glencoe, a conservative town about 45 miles from the Twin Cities.
Franken, 57, grew up in St. Louis Park outside Minneapolis and moved to New York in the mid-1970s to begin his career as a comedy writer for "Saturday Night Live," for which he won five Emmys. By the 1980s he was appearing on the show as Stuart Smalley, a self-help guru who became the linchpin of the 1995 film "Stuart Saves His Family."
Thirty years after leaving Minnesota, Franken returned home in late 2005 and began laying the groundwork for the race against Coleman. Franken's outspoken critiques of conservatives -- his mid-1990s book "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot" was a bestseller -- made him a hero among liberal activists. But having never run for office, and having written decades worth of pieces that were funny but sometimes inflammatory, Franken was considered a long shot.
Franken said he believes that his comedic past and his time as a talk-radio host helped attract initial attention to his candidacy, but that to win he will have to demonstrate a grasp of the impact of two wars and a global financial crisis on voters' lives.
"I think the people that are paying attention -- the reason I'm doing so well right now -- they understand that I'm talking about the issues that affect them and that I'm a serious guy," he said in an interview outside the Wagon Wheel.
To that end, Franken campaigned Tuesday as if he were an old farmhand. Sen. Tom Harkin (D), the Agriculture Committee chairman from neighboring Iowa, appeared at the diner to promise Franken a seat on his committee. Franken took notes on a yellow pad as the farmers discussed biofuel production and, in vowing more funding for wind farms, he informed them that the state's 1st Congressional District is the sixth windiest in the nation.
In the spring and summer, Franken was on the defense, dealing with criticism that he failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes earlier this decade and for writing an article in Playboy that some said was derogatory toward women.
Coleman has dealt with controversy, too. Minnesota Democrats have questioned whether he is getting an unduly favorable deal on his $600-a-month Capitol Hill rental, which is owned by one of his political consultants. The senator said he has only a small bedroom in the apartment and pays a fair amount. And he recently denied allegations that he received free suits from a longtime campaign contributor.
Coleman, who this month pulled his negative advertising, said he hopes voters will consider his background as a prosecutor, city councilman, mayor and senator. He also encourages voters to consider Franken's background.
"What have you done for middle-class families in the state of Minnesota; what have you done in the last 30 years? I can point to 50 things I've done. . . . Tell me one thing. You're running for United States Senate. This is serious -- that's a fair question for folks to ask," Coleman said in an interview after campaigning at Gert and Erma's coffee shop in Glencoe.
But Coleman is struggling to get that message through the anti-Republican mood among Minnesota voters, particularly since the financial markets collapsed and he supported the $700 billion rescue plan. Franken was opposed to the bailout and rails against it on the stump.
In conservative Glencoe, the type of town where Republicans need to do well to offset Democratic strength in cities, Coleman faced heated questions about the bailout. "If I lose this race, it's because of the American economy and voting for a rescue package," he said afterward.
At several stops Monday, Coleman did not mention his party's presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain. A poll this week showed McCain trailing Sen. Barack Obama by almost 20 points in Minnesota. And the only sign of President Bush was a Franken staffer wearing a Bush mask outside a Coleman event in Redwood Falls in southwestern Minnesota, an ever-present attempt by the Democrat's campaign to remind voters of Coleman's once-close ties to the White House.
Even as Franken tries to convince voters he's sincere, the comedian in him still emerges. At a rally Tuesday with 2,000 supporters at the University of Minnesota, he ad-libbed jokes throughout his 20-minute speech and poked fun at Clinton. He urged voters to get "Franken for Senate" bumper stickers, but to not cut off other drivers until the election is over.
Franken then started bantering with the crowd as he recited positive economic statistics from the Clinton White House era, rhetorically asking the audience if they recalled those times. "Vaguely," a man yelled, prompting laughter.
"I'll do the jokes, sir," Franken replied, drawing even more laughs.
After the rally, Ann Jaede, 73, said she had been very hesitant to support Franken in the spring because of "the comedian aspect of it."
Now, Jaede said: "He's become more serious. I think he's taken the edge off. That's his personality. He's made it work for him, not against him."
LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Cory Ryan -- Getty Images; Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been campaigning in Minnesota with U.S. Senate hopeful Al Franken.
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The Washington Post
October 25, 2008 Saturday
Regional Edition
McCain Blasts Rival On Stump in Colorado;
Obama Is Ahead in Polls in GOP State
BYLINE: Michael Abramowitz; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
DATELINE: DENVER, Oct. 24
Sen. John McCain opened up a fresh line of attack against his presidential rival in Colorado on Friday, saying Sen. Barack Obama's election would give Democrats unchecked authority over the nation's purse strings.
"The answer to a slowing economy is not higher taxes, but that's exactly what's going to happen when the Democrats have total control of Washington," he warned, while also taking a swipe at Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) for suggesting that taxes and spending may need to be increased to deal with the nation's economic crisis. "When he says that, quote, there are, quote, 'a lot of very rich people out there whom we can tax,' it's safe to assume that means you," McCain said.
McCain spent the day in Denver, Colorado Springs and Durango, campaigning in a traditionally Republican state where Obama is leading in the polls and has been flooding the airwaves with advertisements. McCain was accompanied by John Elway, a former Denver Bronco quarterback legendary for fourth-quarter heroics, who told the Denver crowd that he "knows a thing or two about comebacks" and expressed confidence that McCain would defy predictions that he will go down to defeat here.
Judging from his speech Friday morning, McCain plans to keep hammering away at Obama on taxes, spending and the question of whether he is ready to become commander in chief, the subject of a McCain campaign ad released Friday.
"Senator Obama said yesterday that if you want to know how he would respond in a crisis, look what he's done during his campaign," McCain said. "But we've seen the wrong response from him over and over during this campaign."
McCain noted that Obama "opposed the surge strategy that is bringing us victory in Iraq and will bring us victory in Afghanistan," continuing: "He said he would sit down unconditionally with the world's worst dictators. When Russia invaded Georgia, Senator Obama said the invaded country should show restraint. He's been wrong on all of these."
The GOP nominee also picked up on new reports of rising foreclosures to sharpen his critique of the administration and Congress for not moving fast enough to help struggling homeowners. McCain wants the federal government to spend up to $300 billion to buy bad mortgages and give homeowners a break, and on Friday morning he appeared to refer to reports that the federal government may start guaranteeing home mortgages.
"Finally Congress and the administration are putting together a plan to address this problem," McCain said. "Let me say: It's about time."
Obama, who was off the campaign trail on Friday visiting his ailing grandmother in Hawaii, has worked to deflect his rival's attacks, insisting that in his administration taxes would go up only for people making more than $250,000.
But in a conference call, senior aides to Obama described an electoral map that heavily favors their candidate and an organizational juggernaut aimed at sweeping the battleground states that are still up for grabs.
The best news for Obama, campaign manager David Plouffe said, is that McCain is not seriously threatening in any state that voted for Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry in 2004.
McCain is making an aggressive run at Pennsylvania, but Plouffe pointed out that Democrats hold a 1.2 million voter-registration advantage in the state, double the 2004 edge.
The "cold, hard numbers," as Plouffe put it, are this: McCain would have to win 15 percent of the Democratic vote, 95 percent of the Republican vote, and 60 percent of independents to carry Pennsylvania on Nov. 4.
Staff writer Shailagh Murray contributed to this report
LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 25, 2008 Saturday
Suburban Edition
Obama Has Burst in Ad Spending in Early October
BYLINE: Matthew Mosk and Sarah Cohen; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama reported spending $82 million on advertising during the first two weeks of October -- more than half of what Sen. John F. Kerry spent on television commercials for the entire 2004 presidential campaign.
The burst of spending came on the heels of Obama's record month of fundraising and has, in some key markets, enabled the presidential nominee to broadcast as many as seven commercials for every one aired by Republican Sen. John McCain.
"It's beyond saturation," said Evan Tracey, a media analyst.
The overall differences in the way each campaign spent money during the critical first weeks of October are stark.
The reports filed with the Federal Election Commission late Thursday show that Obama and the Democratic Party committees that are supporting his effort spent nearly $105 million from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15. McCain and Republican Party entities, by contrast, spent just over $25 million.
Ten days ago, the campaigns each had about $100 million left in the bank to carry them through Election Day. But Obama's decision to forgo public financing for the general-election campaign has left him free to continue to raise money in the race's waning weeks. The Democrat raised an additional $37 million in the first half of the month, most of it via online donations.
For fundraising, McCain has relied on the Republican National Committee, which reported bringing in about $15 million through various entities during the first half of October.
The spending advantage has enabled Obama to blunt any potential for criticism of the negative ads he has run by complementing them with twice as many biographical and issue-oriented spots. And he has been able to advertise in costly media markets that reach battleground states, such as the Boston market (New Hampshire), the Washington, D.C., market (Northern Virginia) and even the Chicago market (Indiana).
"Obama has spent more in these markets than McCain had to spend for the entire general election," said Tracey, whose firm tracks spending on political ads.
The advantage has also been in evidence on the ground. In October, Obama and the Democratic National Committee had $2.3 million in payroll costs, compared with about $1 million for McCain and the RNC.
One of those salaries garnered media attention yesterday -- $36,000 in payments the RNC made to makeup artist Amy Strozzi, and about $19,000 it paid hair stylist Angela Lew. These charges are not entirely uncommon -- all campaigns have a theatrical element to them and require some attention to the appearance of the candidate, or in this case, vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2008
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 24, 2008 Friday
Final Edition
Warner retains big lead;
Poll: Gilmore trails significantly in race for Virginia Senate seat
BYLINE: JEFF E. SCHAPIRO; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. B-1
Virginia's U.S. Senate race is anything but.
The latest Richmond Times-Dispatch Poll puts Democrat Mark R. Warner comfortably ahead of Republican Jim Gilmore - 58 percent to 33 percent, with 9 percent undecided.
Warner's lead is essentially unchanged from two weeks ago, when the T-D Poll gave him 57 percent to 31 percent for Gilmore. Eleven percent were undecided.
The new survey shows Warner ahead of Gilmore in all regions of the state and among all voter groups, except Republicans. But even among Republicans, Warner is backed by one in four.
The Warner campaign played down the poll's results. A Gilmore strategist suggested they are misleading.
"Governor Warner appreciates the broad support indicated by the polls, and he will be working extremely hard between now and the election day for the privilege of going to Washington to get to work on our nation's challenges," said Warner spokesman Kevin Hall.
Dick Leggitt, a senior adviser to Gilmore, said the poll is inaccurate because "a lot of conservatives won't talk to pollsters, and when they hang up, the results get skewed." Leggitt added, "A lot of the questions are so long only shut-ins have time to answer them."
The contest to succeed retiring Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., has been largely overshadowed by the presidential campaign. Virginia has emerged as a battleground, possibly poised to back a Democrat for the White House for the first time in 44 years.
Warner, with a 61 percent favorable rating - better than twice that for Gilmore, is now attempting to use his popularity to Obama's advantage.
Warner is running radio commercials touting Obama, who - according to The T-D Poll - is effectively tied here with Republican John McCain. Also, Warner's and Obama's names appear side by side in promotional literature and yard signs.
Gilmore has coupled his candidacy with McCain's, emphasizing shared ties to the right. Yesterday, Gilmore announced his pledge to the American Conservative Union to oppose a continued prohibition on off-shore exploration for oil and gas.
The Senate campaign, between two former governors, is a study in contrasts.
Warner raised taxes during his term - a move supported by many voters. Gilmore cut taxes, but is widely viewed by Democrats and moderate Republicans as putting tax relief ahead of fiscal discipline.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: October 28, 2008
NOTES: BREAKING NEWS 10/23/08 12:08 PM on inRich.com
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
Warner retains big lead: Poll: Gilmore trails significantly in race for Virginia Senate seat
BYLINE: Jeff E. Schapiro, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Oct. 24--Virginia's U.S. Senate race is anything but.
The latest Richmond Times-Dispatch Poll puts Democrat Mark R. Warner comfortably ahead of Republican Jim Gilmore -- 58 percent to 33 percent, with 9 percent undecided.
Warner's lead is essentially unchanged from two weeks ago, when the T-D Poll gave him 57 percent to 31 percent for Gilmore. Eleven percent were undecided.
The new survey shows Warner ahead of Gilmore in all regions of the state and among all voter groups, except Republicans. But even among Republicans, Warner is backed by one in four.
The Warner campaign played down the poll's results. A Gilmore strategist suggested they are misleading.
"Governor Warner appreciates the broad support indicated by the polls, and he will be working extremely hard between now and the election day for the privilege of going to Washington to get to work on our nation's challenges," said Warner spokesman Kevin Hall.
Dick Leggitt, a senior adviser to Gilmore, said the poll is inaccurate because "a lot of conservatives won't talk to pollsters, and when they hang up, the results get skewed." Leggitt added, "A lot of the questions are so long only shut-ins have time to answer them."
The contest to succeed retiring Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., has been largely overshadowed by the presidential campaign. Virginia has emerged as a battleground, possibly poised to back a Democrat for the White House for the first time in 44 years.
Warner, with a 61 percent favorable rating -- better than twice that for Gilmore, is now attempting to use his popularity to Obama's advantage.
Warner is running radio commercials touting Obama, who -- according to The T-D Poll -- is effectively tied here with Republican John McCain. Also, Warner's and Obama's names appear side by side in promotional literature and yard signs.
Gilmore has coupled his candidacy with McCain's, emphasizing shared ties to the right. Yesterday, Gilmore announced his pledge to the American Conservative Union to oppose a continued prohibition on off-shore exploration for oil and gas.
The Senate campaign, between two former governors, is a study in contrasts.
Warner raised taxes during his term -- a move supported by many voters. Gilmore cut taxes, but is widely viewed by Democrats and moderate Republicans as putting tax relief ahead of fiscal discipline.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081024-RV-Warner-retains-big-lead-1024
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Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 24, 2008 Friday
Metro Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B8
Facts are facts; this paper should stick to them
Dan Radmacher might better understand increasing public mistrust of the objectivity of newspapers by reading a purported "news" story in the Oct. 10 Roanoke Times -- "Economy notebook: Pelosi calling for action over $150 billion plan."
The final paragraph about failed Democratic efforts to pass a second House-backed stimulus package in the Senate reads, "If Democratic nominee Barack Obama wins the White House and if Capitol Hill Democrats make gains in the elections as well, it might be easier to pass a stimulus measure over dispirited Republicans."
Is this news, or is it the hypothesis of an unidentified wire service or Times "reporter"? If it's the latter, it should be relegated to the op-ed page, rather than presented as news.
The Times is utilizing an ostensible news article to advise readers that a vote for Obama and other Democrats could lead to another redistribution of wealth from those who have applied themselves to earn it to those who have not.
What we have here is a failure to communicate objectively. News is news, and opinions are opinions. This paper and others are increasingly blurring that distinction at the risk of further eroding the declining trust of their readership.
Trevor Roe
Ferrum
Editor's note: The paragraph quoted was published as written by The Associated Press. The paragraph that preceded it, as written and published, might be helpful to some readers: "The House did pass a $61 billion economic aid proposal last month before lawmakers left Capitol Hill ahead of the Nov. 4 election. But a similar plan failed to pass the Senate. President Bush had promised a veto anyway."
Don't let Obama appoint justices
When you vote on Election Day, remember our next president will likely nominate one, maybe two, justices to the U.S. Supreme Court -- where they will serve for life.
John McCain has promised to nominate justices who will respect the original intent of the Constitution. But Barack Obama is sure to nominate radical leftists like himself. Such judges will be pro-abortion, pro-homosexual rights and against any influence of America's Christian heritage in law or government.
The recent Supreme Court decision to uphold a ban on partial-birth abortion was by a narrow margin of 5 to 4. The ruling that the Second Amendment applies to individual citizens was also 5 to 4. If just one Obama appointment had been on the court, those victories for life and liberty would have gone the other way.
Those who plan to vote for Obama should realize his socialist people's paradise will come at a great cost to the economy and our national security. The greatest cost, however, will be that we will have missed our last chance to keep constitutional integrity on the Supreme Court. For the sake of America's future, vote for McCain.
Tom Taylor
Roanoke
Palin represents traditional values
When John McCain selected Sarah Palin, he hit a home run and Democrats knew it. They were out-witted and stunned. Immediately a tirade of caustic letters appeared in The Roanoke Times that still continues, trying to demean and belittle her and her family.
Valid concerns about qualifications are important, but Palin's qualifications for vice president far exceed Barack Obama's for president. The nit-picking of most of the first letters was a frantic attempt to sway voters who think she will be the breath of fresh air needed to shake up the good ol' boys in Washington as she did in Alaska. Her experience as governor is more assuring than Obama's as community organizer.
Palin represents values the majority of us hold dear: faith in God, sanctity of life, motherhood, traditional marriage and the Second Amendment. Polls haven't been favorable for John McCain and Palin and their election is doubtful. But if those of us who are the silent majority favoring them express our approval and vote, they will be elected.
I fear that many of our freedoms will be lost and America will be changed forever if Obama is elected. Changes that we don't want.
Bob Shelton
Christiansburg
Extra section takes on a liberal slant
Articles on the opinion and commentary pages of The Roanoke Times are predominately liberal. The liberal slant also is found in the comic section ("Doonesbury").
On Oct. 4, liberal views slid into the Extra section with a vengeance. Page one offered a preview of Bill Maher's latest movie, "Religulous" ("Irreverent humor saves 'Religulous' "). It is largely a tirade against religion, especially Christianity. All religious people are stupid. There was no criticism of the movie, which was "saved" by "irreverent humor."
The same kind of humor was employed by "An American Carol" but now it becomes "left-bashing" and "rude and irreverent." Double standard? Rife in The Times.
If you agree with this leftward slant, then Sen. Barack Obama is the man you should vote for. The sanctity of life is not the only thing that he consistently ignores.
Daniel Esau
Roanoke
Goode's ad was on target
Sara Braaten was wrong in her Oct. 10 letter ("Goode's ad doesn't reflect well on him"). Tom Perriello is a New York lawyer. He is a member of the New York bar.
Perriello had that information on his resume early in the campaign and then removed it. I wonder if he is ashamed of being a New York lawyer.
He has also gotten more than $160,000 in contributions from New Yorkers. He has received $7,000 in campaign contributions from the PACs of New York Rep. Charles Rangel. We do not need New York values in Virginia. We need Virgil Goode and Virginia values.
Marilyn Osborne-Bach
Huddleston
Try to treat all religions equally
Re: "Absences are excused but not pardoned during Jewish holidays" (Oct. 8 The Edge section), reporting how Roanoke students are denied a perfect-attendance certificate if they miss school for non-Christian religious holidays:
In elementary school in Loudoun County in the 1960s, I once had this experience when my only missed day was a Jewish holiday. I thought the time was long past when any student in Virginia would have to experience this minor, but unnecessary, disappointment.
But lo and behold, the policy persists in Roanoke; moreover, if it's still the policy in Roanoke, I imagine other school systems have the same policy.
Here's a modest suggestion: Allow students one or two days per year that can be pardoned (for perfect-attendance reasons) for a non-Christmas religious observance. The school system already excuses such absences, so no debate should be needed over which absences would be considered legitimate for the pardon.
It's a fairly small thing in the life of a student to get, or fail to get, a perfect-attendance certificate. But it's a big lesson for students to see their local school system and government doing their best to treat all religions equally, as the First Amendment challenges us to do.
Alan Raflo
Blacksburg
Health inspectors fell down on the job
I just wanted to say how shocked I was to see the filth in the food court downtown. I have only one question: Do we not have health inspectors? After the nasty stuff your paper showed, why would any inspector pass these places and allow them to serve food?
That filth did not happen overnight. If we do have inspectors, maybe someone should retrain them, as it is evident that someone may be getting paid for a job that has not been done. I have taken my family down there to eat and was just sick to see how bad things were.
Roanoke is a beautiful place. We should be proud of our town, and I am. I just hope stuff like this never happens again.
S.A. Cranford
Salem
LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 24, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
WASHINGTON | MoveOn.org and the health advocacy group Health Care for America Now are criticizing Republican John McCain's health care plan in a new television ad that's part of the organizations' $1 million effort in North Carolina.
The ad, called "Fighter," began airing in the state Thursday and features a woman with cancer who questions whether she'll have coverage under the Republican nominee's health care plan.
McCain wants to provide tax credits to encourage Americans to purchase private health insurance. To pay for part of his plan, he has proposed requiring workers to pay federal income taxes on the health benefits they now receive tax-free from their employers.
The move comes as a nother group has bought $250,000 worth of airtime in several battleground states to raise concerns about the appointment of justices to the Supreme Court - without mentioning any political candidates. On Thursday, the Judicial Confirmation Network began airing an issue ad suggesting that a more liberal judicial appointment would jeopardize the country's values .
- The Associated Press
Virginia Beach
Giuliani to headline republican rally
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will campaign with military veterans Saturday in Virginia Beach for Republican presidential nominee John McCain and U.S. Rep. Thelma Drake.
The 2 p.m. Veterans Victory rally will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, at 4453 Bonney Road. Other attendees will include Sen. McCain's son Doug McCain; retired Capt. Charles "Sneakers" Nesby, the first black Top Gun pilot; and retired Capt. Jim Mulligan, who was a prisoner of war with John McCain.
- The Pilot
Suffolk
Nansemond river to host biden
Sen. Joe Biden will visit Suffolk on Saturday to hold a rally for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
The vice presidential nominee will hold a rally at Nansemond River High School at 11 a.m. Doors will open at 9.
This will be Biden's fifth trip to Virginia since the end of the primary campaign. He will talk about Obama's plan for the economy, health care and the war in Iraq, according to a news release.
Members of the public can reserve a place at www.va.barackobama.com .
- Dave Forster, The Pilot
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 24, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Warner maintaining lead over Gilmore, poll shows
By Warren Fiske
The Virginian-Pilot
richmond
Democrat Mark Warner continues to hold a prodigious lead over Republican Jim Gilmore in Virginia's race for the U.S. Senate, according to a new poll.
Warner led Gilmore 58 percent to 33 percent in a telephone survey of 625 likely state voters conducted Monday and Tuesday by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc.
There has been little movement in the race in recent weeks. A Mason-Dixon poll at the start of October showed Warner on top 57 percent to 31 percent.
The latest survey shows Warner significantly ahead in all regions of the state, among all age groups, with men and women, blacks and whites, veterans and those who never served in the military.
Sixty-one percent said they had a favorable impression of Warner; 17 percent said they have an unfavorable view. Gilmore received 29 percent positive ratings and 36 percent negative ratings.
Dick Leggitt, a longtime Gilmore adviser, called the poll results "baloney." He tied Gilmore's chances to the Election Day performance in Virginia of Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee.
"I believe McCain will carry Virginia and Jim Gilmore will win," he said.
A Mason-Dixon poll released Wednesday showed the presidential race too close to call in Virginia, with Democrat Barack Obama at 47 percent and McCain at 45 percent . The Senate and presidential polls both have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Warner spokesman Kevin Hall said, "Gov. Warner certainly appreciates the broad support indicated by this poll, and he'll be working extremely hard between now and Election Day for the honor of going to Washington and working for change."
Warner moves into the closing days of the campaign with an enormous financial advantage. As of Oct. 1, he had raised a total of $12.3 million in contributions and had $3.6 million left in the bank, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission. Gilmore had raised a total of $1.9 million and had $121,000 left on Oct. 1.
Warner plans to spend the final days campaigning across the state and airing a strong dose of television commercials stressing his bipartisan theme. Many of the ads will feature Republican businessmen and retired GOP legislators who are backing Warner.
Gilmore is relying heavily on automated phone calls to link himself to McCain, betting that Virginia will continue its 40-year history of backing Republican presidential candidates. He plans to appear with GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin at rallies Monday in Fredericksburg and Salem.
Gilmore was governor from 1998 to 2002. Warner was governor from 2002 to 2006. Virginia is the only state that bars its chief executive from serving consecutive terms, so neither could seek re-election.
They are running for a Senate seat occupied since 1979 by Republican John Warner - no relation to Mark Warner. John Warner chose not to seek reelection this fall.
Warren Fiske, (804) 697-1565, warren.fiske@pilotonline.com
the numbers
Mark Warner led Jim Gilmore 58 percent to 33 percent in a survey of 625 likely state voters conducted this week by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc.
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 24, 2008 Friday
Suburban Edition
McCain's Pitch to Average Joes Focuses on Taxes
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02
The Ad: (BARACK OBAMA): I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody.
(1st WOMAN): I'm Joe the plumber.
(2nd WOMAN): I'm Joe the plumber.
(3rd WOMAN): I'm Joe the plumber.
(NARRATOR): Spread the wealth?
(1st MAN): I'm supposed to work harder . . .
(2nd MAN): . . . just to pay more taxes.
(3rd MAN): Obama wants my sweat to pay for his trillion dollars in new spending?
(4th WOMAN): I'm Joe the plumber.
(NARRATOR): Barack Obama. Higher taxes. More spending. Not ready.
Analysis: This John McCain ad is based on a faulty premise.
The "ordinary" folks who say they are like Joe Wurzelbacher, the Ohio plumber constantly invoked by the Republican nominee, are meant to convey that they, too, are working-class Americans. But if they are anywhere near the income status of Joe the plumber, they would receive a tax cut under Barack Obama's plan -- not, as the commercial suggests, a tax increase.
Obama would raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year, which is why the ad carefully skirts any mention of income. Wurzelbacher, who makes roughly $40,000 a year, has acknowledged that his taxes would be cut by the Obama proposal. His complaint to the Democratic nominee during a campaign stop about having to pay higher taxes was based on his hope that one day he would buy a business and earn more than six times his current pay.
The "spread the wealth" remark, captured on videotape as the senator from Illinois talked to Wurzelbacher, is fair game for political attack. The unidentified people who complain that Obama would take more of their income to pay for government spending undoubtedly reflect a widespread resentment among taxpayers.
But redistributing wealth -- that is, taking a bigger slice from the affluent than from those in lower brackets -- has long been a feature of the progressive income tax. The Obama campaign disputes the trillion-dollar figure and says the candidate has made clear how he will pay for new spending -- in part through the higher levy on upper-income taxpayers.
Joe the plumber has become a potent symbol for the McCain campaign, but as this ad demonstrates, his circumstances don't fit the charge that Obama would raise taxes on plumbers, and others, in his financial situation.
Video of this ad can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
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Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
October 24, 2008 Friday
Met 2 Edition
Ideology Aside, This Has Been the Year of the Woman
BYLINE: Lois Romano; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Two months after Sarah Palin joined the GOP ticket, and four months after Hillary Clinton ended her quest for the presidency, 2008 is turning out to be a transformative year for women in politics, according to women leaders across the political spectrum.
As Election Day nears, it's clear that gender was not a disqualifying factor for either Clinton or Palin. Voters who turned against them did so for other reasons, just as they do with male candidates. Women from both parties also perceive with satisfaction a heightened emphasis on their issues in this year's race.
Palin's candidacy has sent a jolt through traditional liberal women's organizations as she tries to redefine feminism, suggesting that the old movement has become detached from the hockey moms Palin champions. The mother of five and former beauty queen is the antithesis of the bra-burning militant libbers of the '60s, and she is adamantly antiabortion. Yet Palin has grabbed the feminist label vigorously and has been hailed as one by the thousands of supportive women who wave their lipstick tubes at her rallies.
"She is a direct counterpoint to the liberal feminist agenda for America," John McCain declared last weekend.
While liberal groups have strong ideological differences with Palin, some nonetheless rallied to her defense when she was accused of neglecting her family for the campaign trail. "Would they be asking whether a man with five children should be running for high office?" wrote Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, in an online column. ". . . I feel for Palin, and for all women struggling to be taken seriously in a man's realm."
Although she finds the Alaska governor's views on issues critical to women "a disappointment," Gandy said in an interview that she believes it's important for her own teenage daughters "to see women competing at the highest levels of American politics."
All in all, when the votes are cast and the country moves on, the women's movement will have lots of reasons to feel good about the 2008 election year. "I never thought I'd see another woman on a national ticket in this cycle after Hillary lost," said Geraldine Ferraro, who 24 years ago became the first women to run on a major party's national ticket. "But it's like a ripple effect. Hillary's candidacy, my candidacy -- they have a ripple effect far beyond the immediate results."
The unexpected recognition of a conservative as a role model for women has forced some traditional feminists to reconsider the movement's mission. "It's going to take us a while to find our bearings," said Sarah Stoesz, who runs the Planned Parenthood office that oversees Minnesota and the Dakotas. "As feminists, we've always thought that a core aspect of women's equality is about being in control of our reproductive lives. But Sarah Palin is throwing the calculus out the window and demonstrating a view that some people would call feminism: I can be governor, I can have five children, I can shoot and field-dress a moose, and I don't need access to abortion.
"There's a big debate inside the leadership of the women's movement about how much abortion should be a key political issue."
Even if Palin's star fades, many women think that her impact on the definition of a feminist will be lasting. April Ponnuru, 30, said that though she wishes Palin had more policy experience, "at the end of the day, she is a conservative woman who has strong convictions on life and other conservative issues -- and she made it."
"There are really a lot of us out there," said Ponnuru, the executive director of the National Review Institute and the mother of a 3-year-old. "We are vastly underrepresented in politics, and she's the first truly national politician to make a strong statement about being a pro-life woman -- and that's very appealing."
Conservative activist and lawyer Cleta Mitchell started her career as a liberal women's rights politician in Okalahoma, fighting for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the '70s. "We never said equal rights was just for some of you girls depending on your political philosophy -- that was never part of the deal," Mitchell said. "It was about having options and choices."
One option women have today is that they don't have to dress like a man to make it in politics -- although the frenzy about Palin's $150,000 designer shopping spree shows there are limits to what the public will accept.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes no bones about favoring Armani suits and Chanel shoes -- and has been criticized for it; Clinton has developed a consistent fashionable look with regular hairstyling and St. John suits. Palin, with her long hair, slim skirts and red high heels, is surely the first national female candidate to be called "hot," as Alec Baldwin did last weekend on "Saturday Night Live."
"Back in 1984, Geraldine Ferraro could not have dressed like Sarah Palin and been on the ticket with Walter Mondale," said Michelle D. Bernard, president of the conservative Independent Women's Forum. "She is feminine and she is fashionable, and that is okay now." Further, Mondale and Ferraro barely touched in public; McCain and Palin routinely greet each other with a hug.
The next big issue for women, Bernard surmised, is to determine whether both sides of the ideological spectrum can find common ground. "Is there a big enough tent -- can we all find the common ground in the push for women's rights regardless of women's position on abortion?" she asks.
In recent years, vocal groups such as IWF and Feminists for Life have stepped forward to fight the perception that only liberal women can be in favor of equality and independence. By calling herself a feminist -- once considered a dirty word by the religious right -- Palin proclaimed that feminism is no longer synonymous with liberalism but something that could be shared and celebrated by all women.
Palin is not only antiabortion; her position is even more restrictive than McCain's (although she has never pushed to legislate on it as governor). She favors banning abortion unless the life of the woman is in jeopardy, whereas McCain would make exceptions in cases of rape or incest.
"It's just nonsense to say you can't be a feminist and be against abortion," says former Clinton fundraiser and supporter Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who now backs McCain. "Democrats use [abortion] as a noose around your neck," says de Rothschild, who is in favor of abortion rights. "Sarah Palin," she says, "rocks all the stereotypes of feminism and can only enhance progress for women. "
Karen O'Connor, director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University, argues that while Palin "has had extraordinary accomplishments . . . to be a feminist, you have to believe women deserve equal pay for equal work." (McCain announced his opposition to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was blocked in April by other GOP senators; Palin has said the bill would encourage too much litigation.)
While family and economic issues have long been the focus of politicians, leading voices for women's rights maintain that this year is the first time women have been so aggressively targeted as a must demographic for victory. Many of these voters found their voice through Clinton's campaign, and since the senator from New York left the race in June, both Barack Obama and McCain have been fighting for her supporters. Obama has made significant ad buys targeting women, including one during "SNL" last weekend. A few days later, Palin surrounded herself with women leaders in Nevada -- including two defectors from Clinton's campaign -- to loudly castigate Obama for not choosing Clinton as his running mate. "Our opponents think they have the women's vote all locked up, which is a little presumptuous," she thundered.
Voters have responded to all the attention. Cindy Curry is a 43-year-old mother of two from North Carolina and a registered independent who says she has closely followed the race. A CPA, Curry supported Clinton and was initially "very excited" when McCain selected Palin as his running mate but has since cooled on her. Still, what has moved Curry the most is the mere fact that there were two accomplished, attractive women to consider. "I like to see strong women, and I like to see women succeed," said Curry, who will likely vote for McCain.
Independent Julia Lynch, 53, a professional federal supervisor from Georgia, will vote for Obama, but despite her philosophical differences from Palin, she stated: "You go, girl! These women have moved the process along for us. . . . It's just a matter of time before gender will not matter at all as people choose leaders."
Palin has not been universally embraced by her party. The Republican Majority for Choice, an organization that supports abortion rights, last month announced that it would not endorse the ticket. "She is not pro anything we support," says Jennifer Blei Stockman, co-chairman of the group.
And some GOP women, along with their Democratic counterparts, have openly questioned Palin's qualifications. Mitchell has an answer to that. "Even if Sarah Palin is as 'unqualified' as the left would have us believe," she wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, ". . . then former congresswoman Bella Abzug's lifelong goal has been achieved. She used to say that she was 'working for the day when a mediocre woman could get as far as a mediocre man.' "
Staff writers Robert Barnes and Peter Slevin contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Carlos Barria -- Reuters; The National Organization for Women's president says that "to see women competing at the highest levels" sends a positive message to children.
IMAGE; By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post; "Geraldine Ferraro could not have dressed like Sarah Palin and been on the ticket with Walter Mondale," one conservative said of John McCain's running mate.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 24, 2008 Friday
Suburban Edition
As an Issue, Taxes Favor Obama;
Polls Lean Toward Democrat on a Traditional GOP Strength
BYLINE: Michael Abramowitz and Robert Barnes; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02
DATELINE: SARASOTA, Fla., Oct. 23
In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, John McCain has turned to an argument that has served Republicans well in recent history, using stump speeches and television ads to drive home the idea that the Democratic presidential nominee would raise taxes on average Americans.
Campaigning across the battleground state of Florida in his "Straight Talk Express" bus on Thursday, McCain invoked Joe the Plumber, the Ohio tradesman who McCain argued is the kind of voter who would be harmed by Sen. Barack Obama's economic policies.
"There's Joes all over here," McCain said, as he surveyed thousands of supporters spread out across a lumberyard at Allstar Building Materials in Ormond Beach. "We shouldn't be taxing our small businesses more, as Senator Obama wants to do. We need to be helping them expand their businesses and create jobs."
But for the first time in decades, Democrats appear to have the upper hand in the debate over taxes. Independent analysts estimate that only a small fraction of small-business owners would see their taxes increase under Obama's plan, and polls show that voters are beginning to accept Obama's argument that more Americans would see their taxes cut under his proposals. Even some Republicans said they worry that Obama has more than neutralized a signature GOP issue with the promise of a tax cut for middle-class Americans, while putting McCain on the defensive by alleging -- unfairly, in the view of independent analysts -- that the Republican would raise taxes on health-care benefits.
Campaigning in Indianapolis on Thursday, Obama mocked McCain for making "the strange argument that the best way to stop companies from shipping jobs overseas is to give more tax cuts to companies that are shipping jobs overseas. More tax cuts for job outsourcers. That's what Senator McCain proposed as his answer to outsourcing."
A day earlier, Obama ridiculed the use of Joe the Plumber. While Joe is "cool," Obama said, "let's be clear who Senator McCain is fighting for. He's not fighting for Joe the Plumber. He's fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund Manager."
Appearing on CNN Wednesday, McCain defended his proposal to cut corporate tax rates by saying that high corporate taxes are what force American companies to look overseas for expansion. He said Obama is "all about" trying to take money from the wealthy, and that corporations already pay their "full freight" of 35 percent. He wants to cut this tax rate to 25 percent.
Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine (D) said: "Virginians and Americans feel like the McCain strategy's already been discredited. Focusing tax cuts on the wealthiest and deregulating the economy -- hey, that's been the strategy that's been tried for the last eight years, and that's why we are where we are."
In the latest Washington Post-ABC tracking poll, Obama maintains a 51 to 43 percent lead over McCain on handling taxes. Obama's edge on this question in the Post poll is identical to the one President Bush held over John F. Kerry at this stage four years ago. At about this same point eight years ago, Bush was up 13 points on taxes over Al Gore.
Sara M. Taylor, former White House political director for Bush, said she does not think that Obama will implement his tax plan as promised, but she expressed grudging admiration for his success in making political headway on the issue. "Senator Obama has made it a central part of his campaign that most of the people are going to get a tax cut," Taylor said. "While that may or not be true in reality, they have done a good job of convincing people it is true."
Both McCain and Obama are proposing tax cuts, although Obama is also proposing increases on wealthy Americans. McCain says he would cut taxes on corporations and capital gains, give a bigger child tax credit, and permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for all income levels. Obama would limit the extension of the Bush tax cut to those making less than $250,000 a year, while providing targeted tax breaks for workers, retirees and other specific groups.
Under Obama's plan, for instance, most working-class families would receive a net tax cut, thanks to a rebate for payroll taxes of $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples. That part of the Obama plan has come under most intense fire from McCain and his allies in recent days.
McCain aides said they will fight back hard on the issue and concede that they must regain lost support on taxes if they are to make the case that their candidate would be a better steward of the economy. To that end, they plan to spend heavily on a new ad that builds upon the conversation Obama had recently with Joe the Plumber (Samuel J. Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio), in which Obama was quoted as saying he wants to "spread the wealth," prompting McCain to accuse the Democrat of being eager to engage in wealth redistribution.
McCain's ad features several different people looking into the camera and saying, "I'm Joe the Plumber." One man accuses Obama of wanting to use the man's "sweat to pay for his trillion dollars in new spending."
McCain's advisers said their private polling suggests the Joe the Plumber campaign is gaining traction, and that people understand that taxes should not be raised in a recession, even on the wealthy. Small-business owners are apoplectic about Obama's tax and spending plans, McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace said. "We have a very powerful closing argument," she said in an interview. "Most people generally believe you should lay a foundation for growth. Most people don't believe you take success and spread around the wealth."
But McCain's allies say Obama's ability to flood the airwaves on the issue, particularly with an ad that goes after McCain's plan to eliminate the tax deductibility of employer-provided health coverage, has shifted the conversation (The money would be made up with a refundable tax credit for individuals to buy health insurance, but Obama has made headway by arguing that the plan amounts to a major tax increase on the middle class).
Grover Norquist, a leading anti-tax activist, said the ads are swamping McCain's message. "The candidate that is running as the tax-cut candidate in the ads is Obama," he said, adding that McCain's credibility as a tax cutter has also been undermined because he opposed Bush's tax cuts before embracing them.
Democrats in battleground states professed to be unconcerned about McCain's criticism on taxes. Former Virginia governor and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Warner said the GOP tax message lacks credibility this year, because the country realizes what a tough economic condition exists and that the next administration must do something.
In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Edward G. Rendell said recently that, in his state, Obama had reversed the perception that he would raise most people's taxes. Along with Obama's plan to stimulate the economy, "That's what people want to hear, and that's what's turned the election," Rendell said.
Barnes reported from Indianapolis.
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post; Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his wife, Cindy, in the battleground state of Florida, making stops and holding campaign rallies.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 24, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
BYLINE: Charles Krauthammer
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A19
Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.
I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe -- neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) -- yelling "Stop!" I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.
First, I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The "erratic" temperament issue, for example. As if McCain's risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.
McCain the "erratic" is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.
Nor will I countenance the "dirty campaign" pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. Another ad falsely claimed that McCain supports "cutting Social Security benefits in half." And for months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.
McCain's critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What's astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.
Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme (and unnecessary) conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama's most egregious association -- with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.
The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.
Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the past year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of "a world that stands as one"), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as "the tragedy of 9/11," a term more appropriate for a bus accident?
Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?
There's just no comparison. Obama's own running mate warned this week that Obama's youth and inexperience will invite a crisis -- indeed a crisis "generated" precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?
And how will he pass it? Well, how has he fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he's been in the Senate? The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.
The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain did not have to consult his advisers to instantly identify the aggressor.
Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post; John McCain at a campaign rally in St. Charles, Mo., this week.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
McCain portrays Obama as a sequel to Bush;
Republican steps up attacks on president
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan and S.A. Miller, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
DATELINE: ORMOND BEACH, Fla.
Sen. John McCain on Thursday continued to distance himself from President Bush and even tried to turn the tables on his Democratic rival, arguing that Sen. Barack Obama will provide the sequel to the Bush administration's reckless, runaway spending.
In an election that Mr. Obama has made a referendum on the Republican president, Mr. McCain took three separate swipes at the Bush administration, at one point pounding the podium to emphasize his criticism, and comparing Mr. Bush's grasp of international affairs to Mr. Obama's.
"Are you ready to trust America's national security to an untested leader in these times of war? Two wars we're in," Mr. McCain said at a lumber yard in Ormond Beach. "You know, we can't spend the next four years, as we have spent much of the last eight, hoping for our luck to change at home and abroad."
He leveled the criticisms a day after blaming Mr. Bush, in an interview with The Washington Times, for letting "things get completely out of hand" in spending and the direction of government.
Mr. Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, mocked Mr. McCain's effort.
"If it walks like a duck, if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck," Mr. Biden said in Charlotte, N.C. "John McCain and Sarah Palin are quacking like George Bush."
Mr. Biden said he and Mr. Obama were not running against Mr. Bush. "We are running against the very economic policies John McCain is promising to continue to push forward," he said.
On the stump, Mr. Obama ridiculed his rival for feigning differences with Mr. Bush as the Democrat pounded economic issues that helped firm his lead.
"You see, Senator McCain thinks the economic policies of George W. Bush are just right for America," Mr. Obama said in Indianapolis. "And while Senator McCain says now that he's different from President Bush, you sure couldn't tell by the policies he's proposing."
Mr. McCain spent the day driving the Interstate 4 corridor across central Florida on a "Joe the Plumber tour," stopping at small businesses along the way to talk with owners who said Mr. Obama's plan to raise taxes on those making $250,000 or more would force them to lay off workers.
After news that jobless claims neared a seven-year high, Mr. McCain said Mr. Obama would only make the situation worse.
"Barack Obama's only answer is to double-down on the Bush administration's legacy of out-of-control spending, raise taxes on small businesses, impose mandates on employers and raise trade barriers - a time-proven recipe for turning tough economic times into terrible economic circumstances," Mr. McCain said.
At the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino said Mr. Bush doesn't take the criticism personally.
"I'm not going to comment on the words that our candidate chooses to use. All I'll say is that the president stands by his policies. He also stands by John McCain," she said.
Liberal advocacy group Americans United for Change said Mr. McCain's effort to distance himself from Mr. Bush was "nothing short of a miracle."
Mr. Obama is running an ad showing Mr. McCain acknowledging during the Republican primaries that he has voted with Mr. Bush more than 90 percent of the time, and on Thursday, his campaign put out a fact sheet detailing Mr. McCain's own words of support.
But polling suggests that Mr. McCain is making headway in convincing voters he would go a different direction from Mr. Bush.
* S.A. Miller reported from Washington.
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
GRAPHIC: Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain waves to supporters at a rally in Ormond Beach, Fla., on Thursday. Mr. McCain tried to put some distance between himself and an unpopular President Bush. [Photo by Getty Images]
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama greets supporters in Indianapolis. He said Sen. John McCain "says now that he's different from President Bush; you sure couldn't tell by the policies he's proposing." [Photo by Associated Press]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
BYLINE: By John McCaslin, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE THE BELTWAY; A09
EYE FOR FASHION
"But who knows? He may land his own show on Bravo."
So surmises Joshua Green of the Atlantic, referring to veteran Republican political operative Jeff Larson, who is believed to have been Gov. Sarah Palin's personal wardrobe shopper to the tune of $150,000.
As Mr. Green points out, "even hateful liberals would have to admit that Mrs. Palin dresses awfully nicely."
YO, JOE
The John McCain-Sarah Palin campaign has just released its latest ad, entitled "I am Joe."
It features everyday Americans who submitted homemade videos to the campaign explaining how they are like "Joe the Plumber."
'FAIR' WARNING
Proposed legislation sure to get a heated airing in the upcoming 111th Congress will be a "Fairness Doctrine," which if enacted would require broadcasters to air both liberal and conservative commentators, conceivably sounding a death knell for popular ideological programs like those hosted by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
A number of Democratic leaders, including 2008 presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, have said they would support such controls. Now Sen. Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico Democrat, is among lawmakers adding his voice to the demand for so-called "fairness."
"Radio and media generally have a higher calling than to just reflect a single point of view," Mr. Bingaman opined this week while being interviewed on Albuquerque's KKOB-AM.
But Chris Berry, president and general manager of WMAL-AM in Washington, KKOB's sister station, believes that if Democrats push for a Fairness Doctrine, they could be surprised at the response from their constituencies.
"Millions of people listen and enjoy programs such as those hosted Rush Limbaugh and Chris Plante," says Mr. Berry, whose top-rated station features a heavy lineup of conservative voices (we reported last month that WMAL won the National Association of Broadcasters' [NAB's] Major Market Station of the Year award, beating out other stations across the country).
He predicts that, if engaged, radio listeners from coast to coast "will respond in a massive way if [House] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and other Democrats try to mandate content."
Otherwise, Mr. Berry informs Inside the Beltway that a "Fairness Doctrine" is anything but fair.
"Just the name 'Fairness Doctrine' is misleading," he says. "Let's call it what it is: It's an attack on the First Amendment and puts quotas on free speech. We don't need the government controlling our thought process and what we can say as Americans."
'THE RACE'
"On a college campus in the nation's capital, public discourse about this election cycle is in no short supply," explains Michael Rohd, visiting professor at Georgetown University, who conceived and directs an unprecedented theater project - part performance and part political forum, mirroring the 2008 presidential battle - called "The Race."
The production - updated with the latest news headlines, thus each performance may vary on any given day - incorporates a cross section of voices into an onstage conversation about important issues raised this election season, including what demographic will vote for each candidate and why, and what it takes to be a leader.
Mr. Rohd is founding artistic director of the Sojourn Theatre in Portland, Ore.
* John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or jmccaslin@washingtontimes.com
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 23, 2008 Thursday
Final Edition
Get Out and Vote '08 to visit Richmond;
Message of tour with Beastie Boys, others is 'Literally, vote'
BYLINE: MELISSA RUGGIERI; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: WEEKEND; Pg. D-8
Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz is adamant that the quick Get Out and Vote '08 tour that he and his fellow Beastie Boys are headlining is simply about that: getting people to vote Nov. 4.
Though the seven-date run, which begins Monday in Charlotte, N.C., and comes to Richmond on Tuesday, targets swing states, such as Ohio and Wisconsin, Horovitz said the message to be conveyed is, "Literally, vote. That's it. I'm not trying to tell people they should or shouldn't vote for Obama or McCain. It takes so little time to go on their Web sites and find out what they're going to do and where they stand on issues," he said last week.
The Beastie Boys, who achieved massive success in the '80s with their jokey, attitudinal rap hits, such as "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)" and "Brass Monkey," have, in recent years, crafted songs with more mature themes, many of them political.
The trio of Horovitz, Michael "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "MCA" Yauch, has also raised awareness and money for Tibetan human rights since the mid-'90s.
The group is the one constant on this Vote '08 tour; a supporting cast, including Ben Harper, Sheryl Crow, Norah Jones, Crosby & Nash, Tenacious D, Jack Johnson, and Santogold, rotates among the other dates (Richmond's is the largest bill, featuring the Beasties, Crow, Johnson, Jones and Santogold).
And, despite the political focus of the shows, no money is being raised for any group.
Horovitz says the ticket price ($36 here) will cover touring expenses, and if any money is leftover, "it will go to a nonpartisan organization like Rock the Vote. No one is making any money off of this."
In the phone interview from the band's New York studio - where the trio was working on a new Beasties record for next year - Horovitz answered other questions about the tour.
Q. How long has this tour been in the works?
A. We basically started a few weeks ago. It all happened really fast. We've been stressing about the upcoming election, and we had some ideas that just fell apart. So then we thought, let's just play shows in these swing states and see if that will help.
Q. You're calling this the Get Out and Vote tour, which sounds a lot more nonpartisan than Vote for Change or some of the other titles that tours supporting the Democratic nominee usually have. Was that intentional, since it seems that everyone on the bill is an Obama supporter?
A. It's intricate and tricky, but at the end of the day, the thing that was so frustrating about the last election - and especially the one before that -- was that it came down to a broken box in Florida. We just can't let that happen again.
After stressing about it and doing more research, we found that over 35 percent of registered voters didn't vote in the last election. People were registered and then didn't vote!
I feel if we can get those people who are registered to actually go and do it, then we'll have a clearer stance on where the country stands when the winner is declared ... We all have our personal beliefs and decisions, and as a group, what we've decided is that it's important for people to actually vote.
Q. How did you decide what artists to approach to be on the bill?
A. We tried to get in touch with everybody we could think of. Basically, these are the ones who called back!
The first people we called were ones who are friends of the band, like De La Soul, but they're touring in Europe and couldn't do it.
Q. There are probably a lot of people hoping you're going to play "Fight for Your Right." Are you guys still playing that, or are you more focused on recent material?
A. We haven't played that one for a long time. But we definitely play songs from the first album, and we'll be doing some of those.
Q. Do you know what the structure of the show will be? How many songs each person will play? Will there be any video or messages incorporated to emphasize the political aspect?
A. I have no idea at this point about the structure, except that we're going on last.
Some groups will be there, like Rock the Vote, that will have computers, and you can go up and tell them you're a registered voter, and they can check and tell you where your polling places are.
Q. Do you think you'll project any messages onstage?
A. I think it's just going to be music. We'll be saying something, but just doing the tour is really saying it.
Nobody wants to go see a band and hear them talk about this, that and the other.
If you go
What: "Get Out and Vote'08" with the Beastie Boys, Sheryl Crow, Jack Johnson, Norah Jones and Santogold
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday at Richmond Coliseum
Tickets: $36
Info: www.richmondcoliseum.net, www.ticketmaster.com or (804) 262-8100
Contact Melissa Ruggieri at (804) 649-6120 or mruggieri@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
October 23, 2008 Thursday
Get Out and Vote '08 to visit Richmond: Message of tour with Beastie Boys, others is 'Literally, vote'
BYLINE: Melissa Ruggieri, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
Oct. 23--Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz is adamant that the quick Get Out and Vote'08 tour that he and his fellow Beastie Boys are headlining is simply about that: getting people to vote Nov. 4.
Though the seven-date run, which begins Monday in Charlotte, N.C., and comes to Richmond on Tuesday, targets swing states, such as Ohio and Wisconsin, Horovitz said the message to be conveyed is, "Literally, vote. That's it. I'm not trying to tell people they should or shouldn't vote for Obama or McCain. It takes so little time to go on their Web sites and find out what they're going to do and where they stand on issues," he said last week.
The Beastie Boys, who achieved massive success in the'80s with their jokey, attitudinal rap hits, such as "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)" and "Brass Monkey," have, in recent years, crafted songs with more mature themes, many of them political.
The trio of Horovitz, Michael "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "MCA" Yauch, has also raised awareness and money for Tibetan human rights since the mid-'90s.
The group is the one constant on this Vote'08 tour; a supporting cast, including Ben Harper, Sheryl Crow, Norah Jones, Crosby & Nash, Tenacious D, Jack Johnson, and Santogold, rotates among the other dates (Richmond's is the largest bill, featuring the Beasties, Crow, Johnson, Jones and Santogold).
And, despite the political focus of the shows, no money is being raised for any group.
Horovitz says the ticket price ($36 here) will cover touring expenses, and if any money is leftover, "it will go to a nonpartisan organization like Rock the Vote. No one is making any money off of this."
In the phone interview from the band's New York studio where the trio was working on a new Beasties record for next year -- Horovitz answered other questions about the tour.
Q. How long has this tour been in the works?
A. We basically started a few weeks ago. It all happened really fast. We've been stressing about the upcoming election, and we had some ideas that just fell apart. So then we thought, let's just play shows in these swing states and see if that will help.
Q. You're calling this the Get Out and Vote tour, which sounds a lot more nonpartisan than Vote for Change or some of the other titles that tours supporting the Democratic nominee usually have. Was that intentional, since it seems that everyone on the bill is an Obama supporter?
A. It's intricate and tricky, but at the end of the day, the thing that was so frustrating about the last election -- and especially the one before that -- was that it came down to a broken box in Florida. We just can't let that happen again.
After stressing about it and doing more research, we found that over 35 percent of registered voters didn't vote in the last election. People were registered and then didn't vote!
I feel if we can get those people who are registered to actually go and do it, then we'll have a clearer stance on where the country stands when the winner is declared. . . . We all have our personal beliefs and decisions, and as a group, what we've decided is that it's important for people to actually vote.
Q. How did you decide what artists to approach to be on the bill?
A. We tried to get in touch with everybody we could think of. Basically, these are the ones who called back!
The first people we called were ones who are friends of the band, like De La Soul, but they're touring in Europe and couldn't do it.
Q. There are probably a lot of people hoping you're going to play "Fight for Your Right." Are you guys still playing that, or are you more focused on recent material?
A. We haven't played that one for a long time. But we definitely play songs from the first album, and we'll be doing some of those.
Q. Do you know what the structure of the show will be? How many songs each person will play? Will there be any video or messages incorporated to emphasize the political aspect?
A. I have no idea at this point about the structure, except that we're going on last.
Some groups will be there, like Rock the Vote, that will have computers, and you can go up and tell them you're a registered voter, and they can check and tell you where your polling places are.
Q. Do you think you'll project any messages onstage?
A. I think it's just going to be music. We'll be saying something, but just doing the tour is really saying it.
Nobody wants to go see a band and hear them talk about this, that and the other.
Contact Melissa Ruggieri at (804) 649-6120 or mruggieri@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 23, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081023-RV-Get-Out-and-Vote-08-to-visit-Richmond-1023
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 23, 2008 Thursday
Metro Edition
BYLINE: By Tim Thornton tim.thornton@roanoke.com 381-1669
SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. C8
You can learn a lot from a logo.
Sam Brownback's presidential campaign probably didn't have a lot of surplus cash. Fred Thompson has worked in movies. Rudy Giuliani has a pretty high opinion of himself. Jim Gilmore apparently liked Wesley Clark's 2004 logo because he pretty much copied it in 2008.
It wasn't an exact copy. Gilmore gave himself one more star than the four-star general.
And one other thing: At least in this election cycle, successful candidates have successful logos.
When Radford University professor John O'Connor led his intermediate design class through a discussion and evaluation of presidential logos on Tuesday, two weeks before the election, he repeatedly urged them to keep politics out of it.
"We're not electing the president in here today," O'Connor said. "We're just deciding who has the best logo."
The evaluations seemed politics-free, but they weren't always friendly as the logos flashed on a screen at the front of the class.
Fred Thompson's logo: "Anybody think that looks like a license plate?"
Mike Huckabee: "Looks like he's running for sheriff."
Dennis Kucinich: "This looks like a coupon you'd put in the Sunday paper or something."
Tom Vilsack's logo -- with a giant extra "V" -- reminded the students of a movie poster.
So did Giuliani's bold white "RUDY" on a field of blue.
The eagle on Mitt Romney's logo put them in mind of the U.S. Postal Service.
The students rated the logos of each 2008 presidential candidate on their use of type, graphics, color and composition. Each student rated each category on a scale of 1 to 5.
Barack Obama and John McCain were at the top of the heap -- with nearly identical scores. Hillary Clinton was the second-highest ranking Democrat. Gilmore was the No. 2 Republican.
Craig Brians, associate professor of political science at Virginia Tech, said he's not surprised Obama and McCain would have the best logos. They have the money to hire the best designers.
"This is not a cause," Brians said. "This is an effect."
Logos spread across yard signs and bumper stickers and popping up briefly at the end of videos and televisions commercials won't have anywhere near the impact as the commercials themselves, Brians said. What the news media say will have even more impact.
O'Connor agreed, to a point.
A well-done logo gives the image of a well-run, well-funded campaign. A poorly-done logo can send the opposite message. And the message a campaign logo carries is important, he said, in part because it is on all those things that represent and identify a candidate.
"It's basically your signature," O'Connor said.
A great logo might not save a campaign, but a bad logo certainly won't help.
"We're looking at it purely from a visual communication point of view," O'Connor said.
When O'Connor's students ranked the Obama/Biden logo and the McCain/Palin logo, the Democrats came out ahead -- but just barely.
The dominant Obama/Biden element is a stylized "O." It evokes a sunrise over a flowed field while suggesting the U.S. flag with its red-and-white stripes.
Benjamin Rush, a senior, liked it.
"I really thought it was really clever that they had the sunrise with the field," Rush said.
But he's still voting for McCain.
Junior Charron Leeper had a completely different take.
"McCain really leaped out," she said. The McCain/Palin logo exuded strength, confidence and boldness in her opinion. "It seemed like he really knew what he wanted."
Leeper wants Obama in the White House.
She planned to mail her absentee ballot after class.
The campaign logo contest
Students of design say a candidate's logo can reveal a lot. "I think it really indicates the candidates' personalities," said Radford University junior Charron Leeper. One recent class rated the McCain/Palin logo ahead of the Obama/Biden logo in three of four categories. But McCain/Palin was so far behind in that fourth category that Obama/Biden got a higher overall score.
McCain critique
The students liked the graphics, color and composition, but they disliked the typeface. The yellow draws attention. The star highlight's McCain's military service. But the design draws a viewer's eyes to "PALIN," which is the same size as "McCAIN." The "PALIN" looks a little larger because of the small "c" in "McCAIN," leaving it unclear who's on the top of the ticket.Obama critique
Graphics, color, and composition all got high marks -- but not as high as McCain/Palin. Everyone liked the stylized "O" with its red-white-and-blue suggestion of patriotism and a new day and the heartland's plowed cropland. Professor John O'Connor said it's called "the doughnut and bacon." The typeface is a little old-fashioned, but it's clear who's running for the top job.See for yourself
You can see bumper stickers, brochures and other campaign paraphernalia for each presidential campaign since 1960 at www.4president.org.
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
GRAPHIC: Photo MATT GENTRY | The Roanoke Times Radford University students pore over current political logos and designs as professor John O'Connor (center) lectures to his intermediate graphic design class Tuesday. Students were urged to keep their political views out of the judging process. MATT GENTRY | The Roanoke Times Radford University design students rated the logos of each 2008 presidential candidate on their use of type, graphics, color and composition. Each student rated each category on a scale of 1 to 5.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
October 23, 2008 Thursday
Campaign signatures: A design class at Radford University finds that you can learn a lot about a presidential candidate by simply examining his or her logo.
BYLINE: Tim Thornton, The Roanoke Times, Va.
SECTION: BUSINESS AND FINANCIAL NEWS
Oct. 23--RADFORD -- You can learn a lot from a logo.
Sam Brownback's presidential campaign probably didn't have a lot of surplus cash. Fred Thompson has worked in movies. Rudy Giuliani has a pretty high opinion of himself. Jim Gilmore apparently liked Wesley Clark's 2004 logo because he pretty much copied it in 2008.
It wasn't an exact copy. Gilmore gave himself one more star than the four-star general.
And one other thing: At least in this election cycle, successful candidates have successful logos.
When Radford University professor John O'Connor led his intermediate design class through a discussion and evaluation of presidential logos on Tuesday, two weeks before the election, he repeatedly urged them to keep politics out of it.
"We're not electing the president in here today," O'Connor said. "We're just deciding who has the best logo."
The evaluations seemed politics-free, but they weren't always friendly as the logos flashed on a screen at the front of the class.
Fred Thompson's logo: "Anybody think that looks like a license plate?"
Mike Huckabee: "Looks like he's running for sheriff."
Dennis Kucinich: "This looks like a coupon you'd put in the Sunday paper or something."
Tom Vilsack's logo -- with a giant extra "V" -- reminded the students of a movie poster.
So did Giuliani's bold white "RUDY" on a field of blue.
The eagle on Mitt Romney's logo put them in mind of the U.S. Postal Service.
The students rated the logos of each 2008 presidential candidate on their use of type, graphics, color and composition. Each student rated each category on a scale of 1 to 5.
Barack Obama and John McCain were at the top of the heap -- with nearly identical scores. Hillary Clinton was the second-highest ranking Democrat. Gilmore was the No. 2 Republican.
Craig Brians, associate professor of political science at Virginia Tech, said he's not surprised Obama and McCain would have the best logos. They have the money to hire the best designers.
"This is not a cause," Brians said. "This is an effect."
Logos spread across yard signs and bumper stickers and popping up briefly at the end of videos and televisions commercials won't have anywhere near the impact as the commercials themselves, Brians said. What the news media say will have even more impact.
O'Connor agreed, to a point.
A well-done logo gives the image of a well-run, well-funded campaign. A poorly-done logo can send the opposite message. And the message a campaign logo carries is important, he said, in part because it is on all those things that represent and identify a candidate.
"It's basically your signature," O'Connor said.
A great logo might not save a campaign, but a bad logo certainly won't help.
"We're looking at it purely from a visual communication point of view," O'Connor said.
When O'Connor's students ranked the Obama/Biden logo and the McCain/Palin logo, the Democrats came out ahead -- but just barely.
The dominant Obama/Biden element is a stylized "O." It evokes a sunrise over a flowed field while suggesting the U.S. flag with its red-and-white stripes.
Benjamin Rush, a senior, liked it.
"I really thought it was really clever that they had the sunrise with the field," Rush said.
But he's still voting for McCain.
Junior Charron Leeper had a completely different take.
"McCain really leaped out," she said. The McCain/Palin logo exuded strength, confidence and boldness in her opinion. "It seemed like he really knew what he wanted."
Leeper wants Obama in the White House.
She planned to mail her absentee ballot after class.
To see more of The Roanoke Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.roanoke.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, The Roanoke Times, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 23, 2008
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PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
October 23, 2008 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
Jock the Vote: NBA Players Raise Their Voices;
Defying Political Convention, Some Star Athletes Choose Sides in Presidential Race
BYLINE: Michael Lee; Washington Post Staff Writer
Etan Thomas emerged from the Washington Wizards' locker room at Verizon Center this week looking like a walking campaign advertisement. He wore a black T-shirt adorned with a picture of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and the words "Yes We Can" in bright gold lettering.
It's not uncommon for the Wizards center to publicly express his political leanings. An outspoken opponent of the Iraq war since it began, Thomas has participated in several Democratic campaign events, including attending the party's convention in Denver and teaming with Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean at voter registration rallies in Northern Virginia.
But Thomas, 30, has discovered that during this presidential campaign he is one of several NBA players taking an active role. "Everybody knows where I stand, but it's great to see other players involved," Thomas said. "The guys I admire did that. The Jim Browns, the Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar]s, the Muhammad Alis. They used their position as a platform. Now, a lot of different athletes are coming out."
This presidential election, featuring an African American nominee for president and a female nominee for vice president, has prompted even NBA players, known for their political apathy in recent years, to take interest.
"Guys are paying attention to what's going on in the world, and I think that many players realize the impact our voice can have," said Los Angeles Clippers point guard Baron Davis, an Obama supporter, who recently spoke at a "Women for Obama" rally in Los Angeles. "We should take it upon ourselves to educate and inspire others about issues that are important to us. We shouldn't wait for someone else to stand up and try to make a difference."
Support for Obama is far from unanimous around the league. Spencer Hawes, a second-year center with the Sacramento Kings, created a Facebook page for fans of conservative pundit Ann Coulter and had a bumper sticker on his car in high school that read, "God Bless George W. Bush." Hawes, 20, said he is backing Republican nominee John McCain and is excited about voting for president for the first time. Hawes hasn't campaigned on behalf of McCain but said, "but I'd be ready and willing if I was asked."
But most players interviewed for this story said they were backing Obama.
Los Angeles Lakers guard Derek Fisher and New York Knicks point guard Chris Duhon were also at the Democratic convention in Denver. Duhon, a teammate of Obama personal aide Reggie Love at Duke, attended the final presidential debate between Obama and McCain at Hofstra University last week.
New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul encouraged people to vote in a Web commercial for the Obama campaign-sponsored Web site. Detroit Pistons guard Chauncey Billups introduced Obama at a rally in Michigan. Greg Oden, Jerryd Bayless and Channing Frye of the Portland Trail Blazers spoke on behalf of Obama at a voter registration drive at Portland State University.
Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James donated $20,000 to the Democratic White House Victory Fund, a joint committee set up by Obama and the Democratic Party for the presidential race, and gave the Illinois senator an autographed basketball when both appeared on CBS's "Late Night With David Letterman" in September. James recently participated in a voter registration rally in Cleveland with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and told an adoring crowd, "All of us want change."
Although the NBA is predominantly African American, the Wizards' Thomas said the enthusiasm for Obama has less to do with him being black than with his views on the economy, health care and education. Obama "is . . . laying out the plans. He's not talking around the issues. There is a sense that things will be different."
Political activism among athletes today doesn't come close to that of the 1960s and 1970s, but it does contrast with the past 20 years, when athletes often chose not to take a stand or share their beliefs for fear of ridicule or financial hits.
In the early 1990s, Michael Jordan famously refused to publicly support Harvey Gantt, a black Democrat running against Republican Jesse Helms in a North Carolina U.S. Senate race, saying, "Republicans buy sneakers, too." Jordan eventually donated money to Gantt, and also contributed to the presidential campaigns of Bill Bradley in 2000 and Obama.
Steve Nash sparked a minor controversy when he showed up at the 2003 All-Star Game in Atlanta wearing a T-shirt that read, "No War. Shoot for Peace." Orlando Magic center Adonal Foyle, another critic of the Iraq war, said athletes shouldn't be afraid to share their political views.
"There is some risk, there is no doubt about that, but I think that's part of the responsibility," said Foyle, 33, who in 2001 founded Democracy Matters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that works on campaign finance reform. "Saying what you think is going to come with a certain amount of people being mad at you, but so what? People are mad at you when you beat them at a basketball game anyway. They boo you anyway. Really, what has changed? I think it all depends on how you do it."
Foyle, a native of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean, recently became a U.S. citizen and plans to vote for Obama. "This is truly a remarkable time to be involved in politics. I feel absolutely honored and special to be voting at this particular juncture," Foyle said.
The political climate has led to debates in locker rooms around the league. "Those are the hot topics because that's where all the news is from," Hawes, who is white, said, adding that he takes some heat from teammates for his views. "You see the 'Saturday Night Live' sketches. It's not really just politics right now. It's become intertwined with pop culture as a whole."
However, some players still refuse to get excited about the election. "People get sour-faced when you talk about politics and voting," said Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas, adding that he doesn't plan to vote.
Arenas, who is slated to earn $14.5 million this season after signing a six-year, $111 million contract this past summer to remain with the Wizards, said he is fearful that both candidates will raise his taxes.
"The first Bush said he wasn't going to tax nobody," Arenas said. "It doesn't really matter who the president is. They say whatever they need to say to get in office."
LOAD-DATE: October 23, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Rocky Widner -- Nbae Via Getty Images; Kings' Spencer Hawes backs John McCain and, at age 20, will vote for president for the first time.
IMAGE; By Jahi Chikwendiu -- The Washington Post; Wizards' Etan Thomas supports Barack Obama and attended the Democratic convention in Denver.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 23, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
In Ads, GOP Stresses Obama's Ties to Chicago Developer;
But Nominee's Relationship With Rezko Appears to Be Having Little Impact on Voters, Polls Find
BYLINE: Joe Stephens; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
In recent weeks, Republicans launched a series of commercials designed to highlight what they consider a serious ethical lapse by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama: his relationship with Chicago developer Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a longtime donor, former fundraiser and, now, convicted felon.
Bankrolled by rival John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee, the ads allege that Rezko tutored Obama in the ways of shady politics and that Obama rewarded Rezko with millions in tax money.
Yet the emphasis on Obama's friendship with Rezko has had little impact on voters, polling data show, even after Rezko returned to the headlines this month. On Oct. 8, prosecutors asked a federal judge to delay his sentencing on 16 counts of fraud, money laundering and abetting bribery while "the parties engage in discussions." Analysts said that probably means that Rezko is cooperating with the widespread investigation of influence-peddling in Illinois.
The most direct indication that Rezko has not seriously damaged Obama's image was in a New York Times-CBS News poll last week that showed that among the 44 percent who said they were bothered by "anything" to do with Obama's background or past associations, one respondent mentioned Rezko.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that Obama held a 10-point advantage over McCain on the question of which candidate has higher personal and ethical standards. A poll earlier in the week had the senator from Illinois eight points up as the more honest and trustworthy candidate.
Obama has weathered repeated efforts to make Rezko an issue. During the Democratic primary, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) called Rezko a "slum landlord." Obama's foes have described his connections to Rezko as at odds with the candidate's reformer image.
"This relationship undercuts the entire message of Obama's career and campaign," said Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
But Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Obama has "led the fight for ethics reform and worked to reduce the influence of money over the political process."
No evidence surfaced in Rezko's long federal trial to suggest any wrongdoing by Obama, but the two have a long history. Over the course of Obama's political career, Rezko raised contributions for him, introduced him to powerful aldermen and listened when Obama recommended a friend for a job. Rezko even offered expert real estate advice when Obama bought an expensive house on Chicago's South Side.
The two met in the early 1990s. Obama has said he was finishing Harvard Law School when Rezko and his business associates first contacted him about a job possibility in development.
David Brint, then-executive vice president at Rezmar, Rezko's development company, said he called Obama after he was named the first black president of the Harvard Law Review and later introduced him to Rezko.
When Obama entered politics a few years later, records listed three contributions on his first day of fundraising for his Illinois Senate bid. Two, totaling $2,000, came from Rezko's food company and an unincorporated business at the same address. Obama has estimated that Rezko personally raised 10 to 15 percent of his funds.
"At that stage in his life, Barack was looking for people who were willing to help him. And Tony was willing to help him." said Anthony Licata, a Chicago lawyer and longtime Rezko acquaintance.
Over the next decade, Rezko contributed or helped raise as much as $250,000 for Obama. (Obama's campaigns now have donated to charity $159,000 in contributions linked to Rezko. Rezko has not donated to, or raised money for, Obama's presidential campaign, officials said.)
Obama said he had performed no favors for Rezko. Last year, the Chicago Sun-Times discovered a 1998 letter from Obama urging local officials to fund a senior living project proposed by a firm controlled by Rezko and a partner. The campaign and Rezko's attorney later said that Rezko did not request the letter.
Over time, Rezko and Obama met socially. Obama told reporters that he and his wife, Michelle, once visited the Rezko home on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin and that the two couples dined together at a Chicago restaurant.
Rezko, a native of Syria, has an impressive life story, Brint said.
"He came over here, he didn't speak any English," he said. "He built strong relationships, people trusted him."
Rezko also raised money for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) and screened candidates for posts in his administration. Obama said he had "formal discussions" with Rezko about a job for Eric Whitaker, a physician and friend. In 2003, Blagojevich named Whitaker director of the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004 and the next year decided to buy a house in Chicago priced at $1.95 million. He later said that Rezko toured the home and advised him to buy it. Around the same time, Rezko's name was surfacing in connection with reports about questionable dealings in local government.
In June 2005, Obama and his wife closed on the house for $300,000 less than the asking price. That same day, in what Obama has said was an independent transaction, Rezko's wife, Rita, bought a lot that served as the house's side yard for the full asking price of $625,000.
In January 2006, Rita Rezko sold the Obamas one-sixth of the lot for $104,000, one-sixth of the original purchase price. Obama acknowledged later that he "should have seen some red flags" in making the purchase.
In October 2006, federal authorities culminated their three-year investigation of the Illinois government. Rezko's trial, which began in March, detailed how he used political influence to collect kickbacks from companies seeking state business.
In a statement, Obama said: "This isn't the Tony Rezko I knew." Rezko's next hearing is set for Dec. 16.
Polling editor Jon Cohen and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 23, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Antoin "Tony" Rezko was convicted of 16 counts of fraud, money laundering and abetting bribery.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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October 23, 2008 Thursday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE POLITICS; A08
Biden's gaffe
"Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his running mate prompted a small wave of warnings about Biden's propensity for gaffes. But no one imagined even in a worse-case scenario such a spectacular bomb as telling donors Sunday to 'gird your loins' because a young President Obama will be tested by an international crisis just like young President John Kennedy was," New York Post columnist Kirsten Powers writes.
"Scary? You betcha! But somehow, not front-page news," the writer said.
"Again the media showed their incredible bias by giving scattered coverage of Biden's statements. There were a few exceptions. On MSNBC's 'Morning Joe,' co-host Mika Brzezinski flipped incredulously through the papers, expressing shock at the lack of coverage of Biden's remarks. Guest Dan Rather admitted that if [Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah] Palin had said it, the media would be going nuts.
"So what gives? The stock answer is: 'It's just Biden being Biden.' We all know how smart he is about foreign policy, so it's not the same as when Sarah Palin says something that seems off.
"Yet, when Biden asserted incorrectly in the vice-presidential debate that the United States 'drove Hezbollah out of Lebanon,' nobody in the U.S. media shrieked. (It was, however, covered with derision in the Middle East.) Or when he confused his history by claiming FDR calmed the nation during the Depression by going on TV, the press didn't take it as evidence that he's clueless."
Powell and GOP
Colin Powell's "estrangement from the GOP predates the McCain campaign and goes back to his speech on Feb. 5, 2003, making the case in the United Nations for war against Iraq," Brendan Miniter writes at www.opinionjournal.com.
"At one point Dick Cheney poked Mr. Powell in the chest and told him: 'You've got high poll ratings; you can afford to lose a few points.' The rest is history: In the months after the invasion, when no stockpiled [weapons of mass destruction] were found in Iraq, Mr. Powell grew disenchanted with the White House and offered at least two dissenting public statements about WMD that drew a rebuke (including calls from Condoleezza Rice asking him how he was going to clean up the mess his comments created).
"When a special prosecutor was appointed to look into who leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame, Mr. Powell never stepped forward with the leaker's name, even though he knew all along it was his own deputy, Richard Armitage. Instead, Mr. Powell allowed the special prosecutor to spend months questioning White House staffers and journalists, eventually leading to the indictment of Cheney aide Lewis Libby for obstruction and perjury.
"Shortly after [President] Bush won re-election in 2004, Mr. Powell resigned and has spent much of the past year making noises about endorsing Mr. Obama, including praising the speech the Democratic presidential candidate gave on race in Philadelphia and defending his intention of holding presidential-level talks with Iran. When asked about Mr. Powell's endorsement, John McCain said [Tuesday] it 'doesn't come as a surprise.' Given the history, what's surprising is that it took Mr. Powell so long to leave the GOP."
TERM-LIMIT VOTE
A judge Wednesday denied a request from two City Council members to block the council from voting on New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to change the term-limits law so he can run for a third consecutive term, the Associated Press reports.
Brooklyn council members Bill de Blasio and Letitia James filed a petition earlier in the day asking the court to stop a scheduled council vote to increase the number of terms the mayor and current council members may serve. The lawmakers contend allowing a third Bloomberg term would violate the city's conflict-of-interest law.
Judge Jacqueline Silbermann's ruling clears the way for a vote Thursday, although it could be appealed.
The two council members' petition noted that the council would be voting on the extension of term limits for its own members, as well as for Mr. Bloomberg, who is pressing for the change. The petition named the city's Conflicts of Interest Board and the council as defendants.
The judge rejected the argument that the petitioners would be "irreparably harmed" by having to take part in a vote on extending term limits, saying they can vote no or abstain.
Forget the ads
Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, the outspoken Minnesota freshman who created a political maelstrom last week by calling Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's patriotism into question, received more bad news Tuesday when the National Republican Congressional Committee pulled its television advertising campaign for the first-term incumbent, a top Republican official said.
The official wouldn't say how much the ad buy was worth.
Mrs. Bachmann, while a guest on MSNBC's "Hardball" on Friday, said Mr. Obama "may have anti-American views" and that "people that Barack Obama has been associating with are anti-American, by and large."
On Tuesday, Mrs. Bachmann retreated from her statements, saying, "I made a misstatement. I said a comment that I would take back," the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports.
But the newspaper said Mrs. Bachmann also accused "Hardball" host Chris Matthews of coaxing her to utter her comments.
"I had never seen his show before," she said. "I probably should have taken a look at what the show was like. ... A trap was laid, but I stepped into it"
Crowd inflation
"I only sometimes write about crowd size on this blog," reporter Christina Bellantoni writes at www.washingtontimes.com.
"It's a good barometer for enthusiasm, and big crowds help campaigns generate lovely optics, but it's hard to know the actual number of people who stream into an event," Ms. Bellantoni said.
"The Obama campaign provides traveling press with crowd counts along with a verifier (usually a police official) and the person's phone number. (The McCain campaign got in trouble last month for vastly inflating crowd counts and not giving verifiers.)
"The campaign told reporters Tuesday the Miami rally had '30,000+ inside with people lined up outside still trying to get in.' So I was surprised to hear Michelle Obama, in a video that was posted Wednesday morning but removed by the campaign sometime before 2 p.m., tell supporters she had just introduced her husband 'to a crowd of 50,000 here in the city.'
" 'It's just phenomenal,' she said in the get-out-the-vote Web video. Thinking maybe 20,000 people had been turned away, I called the verifier sent by the campaign the day before. He told me the count was indeed 30,000 inside and a 'roughly 3,000 or 4,000 that didn't make it in.'"
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washington times.com.
LOAD-DATE: October 23, 2008
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October 23, 2008 Thursday
Palin's makeover cost RNC thousands;
Alaska billed for kin's travel
BYLINE: By Valerie Richardson, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Gov. Sarah Palin's maverick image as a moose-hunting "hockey mom" took more hits this week with disclosures about her campaign-bought Neiman Marcus wardrobe and her charging the state for some of her children's travel expenses in 2006.
The Republican National Committee reported spending about $150,000 on clothes, hair-styling and makeup for the vice-presidential candidate after she joined the ticket in September.
The campaign expenses include $75,062 spent at high-end department store Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis and $41,850 in St. Louis in early September. The committee also reported spending $4,100 for makeup and hair consulting. The expenses were first reported by Politico.com.
"This is just one more piece of evidence against her, kind of like, what's next?" Seattle pollster Stuart Elway said.
But John Andrews, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, called the disclosures "nit-picking."
"When someone is brought up from the minor leagues to pitch in the World Series," Mr. Andrews said, "that overnight star doesn't have to buy her own uniform."
Nick Shapiro, spokesman for the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, said that neither the campaign nor the Democratic National Committee pay for the wardrobes of Michelle or Barack Obama.
The report surfaced the same day the Associated Press found that Mrs. Palin billed the state of Alaska for airfare and hotel rooms for her children when they traveled with her to official events. She has charged the state $21,012 for commercial flights for her three daughters since taking office in December 2006.
Mrs. Palin said the children were invited to the events as part of the state's first family and in some cases carried out an official role.
"With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it's remarkable that we're spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses," said McCain spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt, who has been traveling with Mrs. Palin. "It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign."
Those who want to blame the Alaska governor for the Republican presidential ticket's problem at the polls are off-base, say politicos.
"It would be totally wrong to blame McCain's troubles on Palin," said Charles Franklin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and polling analyst.
Mrs. Palin has endured a steady stream of criticism and bad publicity since Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain plucked her from near-obscurity to be his running mate. Her triumphant speech at the Republican National Convention was followed by a pair of unflattering television interviews, questions about her qualifications, and an investigation into her involvement in the firing of a state trooper.
The Alaska governor has seen her favorability ratings dip from the mid-50s to the mid-40s, and even high 30s, since peaking in early September after the Republican National Convention.
But Mrs. Palin remains enormously popular with the Republican voter base, Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli said, noting that she drew almost 20,000 people to a rally in Grand Junction, Colo., last weekend. They're unlikely to pay much heed to the wardrobe-and-travel reports.
"Her supporters believe this is an East Coast media cabal trying to damage her," Mr. Ciruli said.
John Freemuth, political science professor at Boise State University in Idaho, agreed that the stories were unlikely to resonate with Palin partisans.
"I hate to say it, but I think people are used to that kind of stuff from politicians," said Mr. Freemuth. "I don't think it's going to make that much difference. In Idaho, there's more of a 'you go, girl' attitude toward her."
LOAD-DATE: October 23, 2008
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The Associated Press State & Local Wire
October 23, 2008 Thursday 12:06 AM GMT
1 Va. poll shows tossup; another shows Obama ahead
BYLINE: By BOB LEWIS, AP Political Writer
One Virginia presidential race poll released Wednesday shows Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain in a close race. Another shows Obama comfortably ahead.
A Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Inc. survey of 625 likely voters Monday and Tuesday showed 47 percent backed Obama, 45 percent favored McCain and 8 percent were undecided.
The results are within the poll's margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The poll, sponsored by NBC News and several Virginia newspapers, shows that the economy was the overwhelming concern of Virginians.
Fifty-seven percent of the respondents ranked it as the nation's most urgent issue, and 48 percent said they most trust Obama to handle it, compared to 41 who said McCain would do a better job.
National security and terrorism ranked a distant second with only 11 percent citing it as the No. 1 concern. Fifty-five percent rated McCain better on the issue to 39 percent who trusted Obama more.
Obama's stronghold was Washington, D.C.'s Virginia suburbs, where he was the choice of 61 percent. McCain was strongest in the Shenandoah Valley and Piedmont region, where he was the choice of 57 percent.
In Hampton Roads, home to the world's largest Navy base at Norfolk, 48 percent favored Obama compared to 43 percent who preferred the former Navy pilot McCain.
A CNN/Time magazine poll showed Obama the choice of 54 percent of the 647 likely voters surveyed and McCain the choice of 44 percent. Two percent supported neither man or voiced no opinion.
The 10-point margin is unchanged from a poll one week earlier, but Obama and McCain gained one point apiece from voters who had been undecided or who supported other candidates.
The results are outside the margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The survey was based on telephone interviews conducted by Opinion Research Corp. from Sunday through Tuesday.
On the Net:
Mason-Dixon Poll/MSNBC: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/22/1579848.aspx
CNN/Time/Opinion Research Poll: http://www.cnn.com
LOAD-DATE: October 23, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire
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The Washington Post
October 22, 2008 Wednesday
Suburban Edition
Democrats or Republicans, Latinas Are Swaying the Vote
BYLINE: David Montgomery; Washington Post Staff Writer
They use lipstick as a beauty accessory and a political weapon. At home, they're the boss. They keep in touch via Facebook. When they call to ask for your vote, in English or Spanish, you hear their children in the background. They say what matters this election are education, taxes, health care, immigration reform and "values."
These politically charged Latinas agree on almost everything -- except which presidential candidate will actually deliver what they want.
"Who said you couldn't get Latinas out here in their high heels being political?" says Rep. Loretta Sanchez, the California Democrat, warming up the crowd at a vice presidential debate-watching party in a bar in Arlington.
The women pass around red lipstick to symbolically redeem the accessory after Sarah Palin's quip about lipstick being the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull.
"Latinas for Biden wear lipstick, too!" the women shout. "We are Latinas for Obama!"
* * *
Another night, a smaller crowd of fired-up Latinas in heels, this time at a business club in downtown Washington.
"Latinas for McCain, we go where the voters are," says Tibi Ellis, a business owner from Las Vegas who co-founded the group. She's visiting tonight to inspire the local Latinas. They wear white buttons with a declaration in red: "I use lipstick and I vote."
"I'll see you back here in Washington for the inauguration!" promises Ellis.
* * *
Niche activism is self-validating and effective. "Jews for McCain" and "Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Obama" can target people with whom they have more in common than mere party affiliation. There are "Women for McCain" for all females who support the GOP nominee. There are "Amigos de Obama" for todos los Latinos who support Obama.
But Latinas for this guy or that guy? That's slicing the demographic pie pretty thin. Political passion is sifted through not one but two filters: gender and ethnicity. Is it the age of micro-targeting and Facebook tribalism run amok?
Not at all, say the women. They were Latinas before they were Democrats or Republicans, and they share a bipartisan insight about their culture: Women are the values-keepers, message-bringers, decision makers. They make the men look good. They're vital to political conversation and conversion.
"In the Hispanic household, the whole household votes the way the woman votes," says Ellis, sporting a sparkling "McCain 2008" pin. "Men are the patriarchs. When it's time to serve dinner, the first steak goes to the head of the table, which is the man. But the steak was bought in the store the woman chose and fixed the way the woman wanted it to be cooked."
"In the Latino community, the woman in the family, the mother, plays a very important role," says Emma Violand-Sánchez, an organizer of Latinas Unidas por Obama, and a candidate for the Arlington school board.
She spent part of a recent Saturday canvassing registered Latino voters in Annandale. The women answering doors in a garden apartment complex invited her into their living rooms, where they would settle in for a chat in Spanish about kids, the future, the Democratic candidate.
"People underestimate the power of mujer-to-mujer, woman-to-woman," Violand-Sánchez says.
* * *
Latinos make up fewer than 5 percent of eligible voters in Virginia, but with the state turning into a battleground, Latinos -- and therefore politically proselytizing Latinas -- could make a difference.
So activistas from Maryland and Washington are crossing the Potomac River to reinforce their sisters in the commonwealth. They are business owners, professionals, holders of graduate degrees -- women of accomplishment for whom political engagement is the luxury of a station in life where they have the understanding and wherewithal to influence events.
Laura RamÃrez Drain, 42, grew up in Mexico, where she was a volunteer for the relatively conservative party of former president Vicente Fox. Her mother had a business designing wedding dresses. Her father was an opera tenor. Campesinos heading north spoke highly of a man named Ronald Reagan, who they said was a friend of immigrants and who enabled their self-reliant dreams. Later, she heard of Reagan's famous quip "Hispanics are Republicans, they just don't know it yet."
Drain got a job with Hewlett-Packard, which sent her to the United States to be a sales manager for the Southeast and then for Latin America. She settled in the Washington area, where she founded the Hispanic Professional Women Association and also a nonprofit group to help Latina high school students.
This year she became a citizen. She registered Republican. To her friends in the nonprofit world, most of whom are Democrats, "it was a shock," she says. "I lost a couple friends. I won over two or three Democrats."
One of her first political acts was becoming a delegate from Virginia to the Republican National Convention, and then she helped organize Latinas for McCain.
Drain and Latinas for McCain spent part of one Saturday canvassing in Annandale, too, less than a mile from where the Latinas for Obama were at work. Drain's group included her 7-year-old son and her husband, an engineer and a Republican, so no lobbying has been necessary at home.
Why McCain?
The Latinas for McCain cite moral values. He is antiabortion and for "the sanctity of marriage."
They give McCain enduring credit for being a champion of immigration reform, even if lately he has somewhat modified his approach to the issue. "For the girls in my foundation, the Dream Act is the most important thing," Drain says, referring to a bill that would give high school graduates who arrived illegally as children a chance to acquire legal status and receive college financial aid.
(McCain was an early co-sponsor the Dream Act, but last year he skipped a vote that would have advanced it in the Senate. McCain's spokesmen did not return three phone calls for comment on his current position. Obama supports the act.)
They admire Sarah Palin, a strong woman rising so high. For all the Democrats' snickering about her recently acquired passport, the Latinas for McCain wonder why the supposedly worldly Obama has spent so little time in Latin America, and why he is skeptical of free trade with their countries.
"Another thing you find with Latinas and Hispanics in general is, back home, they had a little shop, a tiendita, and we're carrying those traditions here," says Fabiola Francisco, daughter of a Bolivian immigrant, active in the family enterprises here that include government contracting and an imported-crafts store. "Less taxes goes perfectly with an entrepreneur."
"Obama's plan would kill my business," says Marilyn Ehrhardt, referring to the Democrat's tax plan. "Whether I want to or not, I can't afford to vote for him."
Ehrhardt's family came from Cuba. Her company provides information technology to health clinics serving the poor. She is one worried Latina, and so she is voting for McCain:
"This election triggered me to become politically active. I'm a naturalized U.S. citizen. I came here for the values this country offered, dealing with personal responsibility, market freedom. I see those in jeopardy. The economy is in jeopardy. Security is in jeopardy."
* * *
The De La Inés hair and beauty salon in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of Northwest Washington is busy on a recent Sunday afternoon, but the women (and a couple of men) sitting before the tall mirrors or beneath the hair dryers are not being styled.
They hold cellphones to their ears, and in their laps they balance bilingual scripts and lists of registered Latino voters who live around Roanoke. Sundays, the salon becomes a phone bank for Obama.
"¿Fuerte por Obama?" Strong for Obama? "¡Qué bueno!" Great!
Depending on how the voter answers the phone, the caller will speak in Spanish or English.
A handful of children scamper around, including the 11-year-old son of Roxana Cazares Olivas, the salon's co-owner and a founding member of Latinas Unidas por Obama.
Olivas, 35, knows what it's like to be a Latina Republican -- she used to be one.
She grew up in El Paso, the daughter of Mexican immigrants from just across the border in Chihuahua. Her father is a retired real estate broker.
Being Republican is a family tradition, the origins of which she does not recall. Like many Texas Latinos, the members of her family liked their governor, George W. Bush. He seemed to understand and appreciate Latinos, in the manner of that other former Western governor, Reagan. Running for president, Bush spoke Spanish in campaign commercials and declared: "There are people in this country who would like to build walls between Mexico and America. And make no mistake about it: A president George Bush will work to tear those walls down."
Olivas became a member of Amigos de Bush in El Paso, and helped cut a music CD for the campaign that played locally. Fours year later, in 2004, with waning enthusiasm, she voted for him again.
"This is the first time I'll be voting Democratic," she says.
Why Obama?
"Immigration, the war, the economy, Katrina," she says. "We just need a change. . . . He not only captured me in his actions but also captured my heart."
She doubts McCain's continued commitment to immigration reform, and says she has never forgotten Obama addressing a huge march for immigrant rights in Chicago in 2006. She wants the Dream Act enacted as much as Drain does. Obama told Latino audiences in Washington this fall that he supports it.
Values matter, too. Sanctity of marriage? Olivas asks which candidate left his first wife and broke up his family. Abortion is tough. She balances it with immigration reform, which she sees as a moral issue, as well.
"Yes, we're not for abortion, but immigration is a deal-breaker," she says.
The day before the election, she and her business partner in the salon, Dina Busacco, will mark the first anniversary of their business. They don't accept the claim that Republicans are the party of enterprise, the Democrats of interference.
"That's such an old-school mentality," Olivas says.
So she's doing what the Latinas for McCain are doing. Using all her powers of persuasion to make a difference.
Her husband is already a strong Democrat. But many in her extended family back in El Paso lean Republican. They are a project. Her sister became a Democrat this year, was strong for Hillary Clinton, now is coming around to Obama. And her father?
"Even my father's for Obama!" Olivas says. "I definitely credit myself with that one."
LOAD-DATE: October 22, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; Top Photo By Michael Williamson, Bottom By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post; Women organizing on the political front are not necessarily in the same partisan camp, but each side is equally energetic, particularly when it comes to appeals that rely on cultural connection.
IMAGE; Top Photo By Michael Williamson, Bottom By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post; Women organizing on the political front are not necessarily in the same partisan camp, but each side is equally energetic, particularly when it comes to appeals that rely on cultural connection.
IMAGE; By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post; At a D.C. salon, from left, Roxana Cazares Olivas, Elizabeth Jenkins-Joffe and Adriana Gallegos work phones for Obama.
IMAGE; By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post; Dina Busacco, co-owner of the De La Inés salon, helps with weekly calls on behalf of the Democrat.
IMAGE; By Michael Williamson -- The Washington Post; At a GOP-sponsored debate-watching party, Luis Quiñonez chats with Marilyn Ehrhardt, center, and Laura RamÃrez Drain, a newly registered Republican.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 22, 2008 Wednesday
Suburban Edition
Obama's Iffy Numbers On McCain Health Plan
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02
"How would your golden years turn out under John McCain? His health-care plan would cut Medicare by $800 billion. That means a 22 percent cut in benefits. Higher premiums and co-pays. More expensive prescription drugs. Nursing home care could suffer. . . . After a lifetime of work, seniors' health care shouldn't be a gamble. John McCain's plan? It's not the change we need."
-- Obama campaign's "Your Golden Years" ad
Barack Obama has been telling seniors that their hard-won Medicare benefits are at risk if his rival wins the election. The message has been hammered home in a series of speeches and television ads, including the one shown above, set against a backdrop of spinning lottery balls. Is it true, as the Democratic senator asserts, that his Republican opponent is planning to "gamble" with Medicare benefits?
THE FACTS
The Obama claim rests primarily on a Wall Street Journal interview with McCain's top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, that was published Oct. 6. Holtz-Eakin told the Journal that McCain would pay for his health plan "in part" by looking for "savings" in Medicare and Medicaid. He was vague about where the savings would come from, other than talking about the need to cut fraud and waste in the programs.
"It's about giving [Medicare and Medicaid recipients] the benefit package that has been promised to them by law at lower cost," Holtz-Eakin told the newspaper.
In other words, contrary to the claim in the Obama ad, the McCain campaign was specifically promising not to "cut benefits" but to provide the promised benefits at a lower cost. The Obama ad misleadingly cites the Wall Street Journal interview as the source for the alarming "22 percent cut in benefits."
How did the Obama campaign come up with the claim of an $800 billion cut in Medicare (described in another Obama ad as an $882 billion cut)? Answer: some back-of-the-envelope calculations by a liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress.
The think tank bases its findings on the assumption that McCain will need to save around $1.3 trillion over 10 years to pay for his health-care plan. (This is based on an analysis by the independent Tax Policy Center that has not been challenged by the McCain campaign.) The senator from Arizona has promised to give Americans a $2,500 refundable tax credit to be spent on health care in exchange for taxing the health benefits they receive from their employers.
It may be that McCain is wildly optimistic in believing that he can find sufficient savings in Medicare and Medicaid to pay for his promised refundable health-care tax credit. But such a criticism also applies to Obama, who is relying on similar cost cuts to fund his health-care plan. The senator from Illinois says that a shift to electronic health records will generate savings of around $120 billion a year, a claim termed "wishful thinking" by many independent experts.
THE PINOCCHIO TEST
John McCain has not provided a convincing explanation for how he will fund his health-care plan. But it is a huge stretch for the Obama campaign to argue that the McCain plan will inevitably result in an $800 billion (or $880 billion) cut in Medicare programs over 10 years, or a "22 percent cut" in benefits paid to American seniors. McCain's top economic adviser has specifically promised not to cut benefits.
THREE PINOCCHIOS: Significant factual errors.
LOAD-DATE: October 22, 2008
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Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
October 22, 2008 Wednesday
Regional Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A19
John McCain should not have to be here, not on a crisp October Saturday scarcely two weeks before the election. Prince William County is the electoral Maginot line between the Washington suburbs and what a McCain spokeswoman has just unhelpfully described as "real Virginia." George W. Bush twice won 53 percent of the vote in this booming exurb, mirroring his statewide totals.
But here is McCain, in front of one sign reading "Phil the Bricklayer" and another proclaiming "Rose the Teacher." If there are any undecided voters here, I have not found them, and McCain does not seem to be looking. His red-meat message is not pitched to the wavering.
"Senator Obama's economic goal is, as he told Joe, quote, spread the wealth around," McCain warns, to angry cries of "Socialist!" Obama's tax plan "is not a tax cut -- it's just another government giveaway," McCain warns. "I won't let that happen to you. You're paying enough taxes."
Outside the rally, a man is handing out "Obama for Change" bumper stickers -- with a Soviet red star and the "g" rendered as a hammer-and-sickle.
There is an ugliness to the McCain campaign's closing days. Sarah Palin talks about "pro-America areas of this great nation." Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann pronounces herself "very concerned that [Obama] may have anti-American views." Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich, ordinarily much more sensible, says, "With all due respect, the man is a socialist."
And McCain is the stoker in chief of the argument that Obama is Eugene V. Debs revisited. "Obama raises taxes on seniors, hardworking families to give 'welfare' to those who pay none," a McCain ad warns. "Joe, in his plain-spoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism," McCain said in a recent radio address. "And a lot of Americans are thinking along those same lines."
The candidates have different visions about the proper role of government; these are fair, and important, grounds for debate. Obama has committed his share of fouls, scaring seniors about McCain's designs on their Social Security and Medicare and mischaracterizing McCain's health-care program.
And, yes, all hard-fought elections turn nasty, despite the best intentions of the candidates. But for all the hand-wringing over Swift-boating in 2004, those charges came from an outside group, not the candidate they sought to benefit, and went to John Kerry's character, not the legitimacy of his governing philosophy.
There are two equally worrying aspects of the toxic fallout from the McCain campaign's closing argument. The first is how much harder it will be for the next president to unite a divided country in the way that both McCain and Obama say they want. Ominous talk about socialism and welfare, about pro- and anti-America, threatens to make that task harder, no matter who is elected.
The second is the long-term damage to the ability to move beyond the stale "no new taxes" debate and have an adult discussion about how to raise the revenue the country needs to make investments for the future, even as it provides for an aging population.
McCain's angry denunciation of socialist wealth-spreading ignores the fact that the country has always had a progressive tax code. McCain himself once seemed to embrace the sensible notion that those who reap greater rewards should contribute more back.
"I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans," he said in voting against the 2001 Bush tax cuts.
When McCain inveighs against Obama's plan to give tax credits to "those who pay none," he ignores the fact that the 40 percent who do not owe income tax still have 7.65 percent taken out in payroll taxes.
Even now, McCain's own health-care plan offers a tax credit to people who owe no income taxes. In Woodbridge, McCain brags about his own "refundable tax credit" to help people purchase insurance -- just minutes after assailing Obama's refundable credit as a "government giveaway."
"I make over $250,000 a year, between my wife and I," Thomas Jacoby, a 62-year-old contractor, tells me in Woodbridge. "I don't want to share it with anybody."
As any parent understands, sharing is not the most natural of human instincts. But government is fundamentally about sharing for the common good; taxes are, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, the price of a civilized society.
McCain is running a campaign both uncivil and uncivilizing -- one I expect he will rue, win or lose.
marcusr@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: October 22, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Carlos Barria -- Reuters; Sen. John McCain campaigns in Woodbridge on Saturday.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
October 22, 2008 Wednesday
McCain trails in states that backed Bush;
Republican gains ground on key poll questions
BYLINE: By S.A. Miller and Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. John McCain is making inroads on some key poll questions, including his ability to handle the economy and to buck President Bush, but he lags far behind his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, in several Republican-leaning battleground states where the election will be won or lost.
Mr. McCain's move to distance himself from Mr. Bush last week - declaring "I am not President Bush" at the final presidential debate - appears to be reaching voters, despite a barrage of ads from the Obama campaign accusing the senator from Arizona of being in lock step with the president.
A CNN/Opinion Research poll found that 52 percent of voters think Mr. McCain's policies would be different from Mr. Bush's, up eight percentage points in just two weeks. It was the first time a majority of voters said he would take the country in a different direction than the unpopular Mr. Bush.
Mr. McCain also gained ground on the question of who would best handle the economy, an issue that previously helped catapult the Democratic presidential nominee to a commanding lead.
About 36 percent of likely voters in an ABC/Washington Post poll released Tuesday said they think Mr. McCain better understands the economic problems - a low number, but eight percentage points higher than just 10 days ago.
Mr. McCain also made strides on questions of who is the stronger leader and would do more to bring change to Washington, though a majority of voters still picked Mr. Obama in both categories.
Mr. Obama kept the country's money woes center stage Tuesday at an economic roundtable in Florida, where he linked Mr. McCain to the president and said they "offered little more than willful ignorance, wishful thinking, and outdated ideology" to address the financial crisis.
"I heard Senator McCain say that I'm more concerned with who gets your piece of the pie than with growing the pie," Mr. Obama said. "But make no mistake about it, after eight years of Bush-McCain economics, the pie is now shrinking. That means lower wages and declining incomes and plummeting home values and rising unemployment."
Mr. McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, responded in a joint statement, slamming Mr. Obama for supporting higher taxes and protectionist trade policies that will "make hard economic times worse."
"We oppose harmful attempts to just 'spread the wealth,' " they said. "Our job-creating economic plan is the best path for the economy and includes the types of policies that the Congress should consider."
The Democratic presidential nominee led Mr. McCain by five percentage points in a nationwide CNN poll Monday, and state-by-state surveys show him up in at least eight states Mr. Bush won in 2004.
Mr. Obama's strong lead in red states Iowa, New Mexico and Virginia and his hold on all states won four years ago by Democrat John Kerry would be enough to win the election.
Mr. Obama has based much of his campaign on trying to tie Mr. McCain to Mr. Bush, who is setting poll records for unpopularity, and the Obama campaign is running a commercial pushing the link.
"John McCain voted for George Bush's agenda 90 percent of the time and bragged that was more than most Republicans," said Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan. "In overwhelming numbers, the American people understand that we are on the wrong track and can't afford more of the same failed polices and destructive politics that we've seen over the last eight years for the next four."
Mr. Obama's roundtable in Lake Worth, Fla., highlighted economic issues and drove home his economic plan to swing states of Michigan, Ohio, New Mexico and Colorado by including the governors.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, was not included.
Both campaigns are lavishing attention on Florida, where 27 electoral votes are up for grabs.
Voters began casting ballots in person Monday under the state's early-voting law.
Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, is scheduled to campaign Thursday with Mr. Crist in Florida.
Mr. Obama has poured millions of additional dollars and hundreds of campaign workers, including his five most senior staff members, into the Sunshine State.
The effort has paid off with a massive boost in Democratic voter registration. Democrats now outnumber Republicans by more than 650,000 registered voters, state election officials said.
The state's Republican Party officials are relying on powerful get-out-the-vote operation, which historically has been the party's trump card in Florida, and through a stronger showing from absentee ballots.
"The real issue is who gets to the polls," Mr. Crist told reporters on a conference call.
More than 850,000 Republicans have asked for absentee ballots in Florida, said Florida Republican Party officials. In comparison, nearly 630,000 Democratic voters have requested absentee ballots.
The Obama campaign deployed thousands of volunteers across the state to get the word out about early voting, which runs until Nov. 2, two days before Election Day.
Early balloting appears to be paying dividends for the Democratic candidate in parts of South Florida that traditionally support Republicans for president.
In Hialeah, a Cuban-exile community neighboring Miami, many voters waiting to cast their ballots Monday said they would back Mr. Obama, a surprise considering Cuban-Americans traditionally back Republican presidential candidates and currently have three Republican Cuban-American lawmakers representing them in Congress.
One of them, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, stopped by the polling station in Hialeah, where he faces a tough race against Democrat Raul Martinez, the city's former mayor. Mr. Diaz-Balart once enjoyed strong support in the area but was greeted with shouts of "mentira," the Spanish word for liar, by bystanders.
Many waiting in line said South Floridians were feeling the sting of a failing economy and that Mr. Obama would be better suited to reverse the downturn than Mr. McCain.
"We're OK for now," said Anna Mora, a Cuban-American retiree. "But many people here are suffering."
The voters, who waited an hour or more in the hot Florida sun to cast their ballots, said the economy was their greatest concern, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ranking a distant second. A sharp rise in joblessness and a crashing housing market has hit many Floridians hard and appears to have steered some of traditional Republican base toward Mr. Obama.
"Floridians recognize that Democrats will work to improve the economy ... and are rejecting the failed economic polices of the Republican Party," Florida Democratic Party
Communications Director Eric Jotkoff said.
* Carmen Gentile, reporting from Miami, contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 22, 2008
GRAPHIC: Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain holds a campaign rally in Bensalem, Pa., on Tuesday. Mr. McCain has gained ground on the question of who would best handle the economy. [Photo by Getty Images]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 21, 2008 Tuesday
Metro Edition
ROBOCALLS HIGHLIGHT MCCAIN'S DESCENT
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B8
In the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina, Sen. John McCain was a victim of Karl Rove, the win-at-all-costs political adviser to President Bush.
In 2008, McCain has become the foremost practitioner of Rovian politics, tossing his hard-won reputation as a straight-talking, honorable politician into the nearest trash can.
The latest, surest sign of McCain's descent into the gutter is his embrace of a tactic he denounced in 2000: sleazy robocalls aimed at tearing down his opponent with misleading attacks.
Thanks to Virginia's battleground state status, you may be lucky enough to receive several of these automated phone calls, like this one about Obama's "relationship" with William Ayers:
"You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans."
That makes it sound like Obama was part of the Weather Underground with Ayers during the '60s, when the fact is that by the time Obama met him, Ayers was an education professor respected in Chicago circles by Republicans and Democrats alike. Their "relationship" didn't extend beyond service on a couple of boards -- a level of association that would damn dozens of upstanding Republicans who served in similar situations with Ayers over the years.
Adding insult to his own injury, there have been reports that McCain hired the same firm for this robocall campaign that attacked him in 2000.
A couple of weeks ago, there was a brief sign that the McCain of 2000 had become disgusted with himself -- or at least what his relentlessly negative campaign had wrought.
After weeks of his campaign -- especially his designated pitbull in lipstick, Sarah Palin -- painting Obama as dangerous, unAmerican and radical, McCain stood up to the increasingly ugly crowds at his own rallies.
He took the microphone back from a woman who called Obama "an Arab," and corrected her and said that Obama is "a decent, family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."
When he told another crowd that, despite what his campaign had been saying at rallies and in commercials, there was no reason to fear an Obama presidency, he was booed.
But those moments were fleeting. Sunday, McCain angrily defended the robocalls, denying there was anything misleading about them.
A man who tried to make honor and honesty his defining characteristics, McCain sacrificed his reputation in pursuit of the presidency. It is a tragedy that could only be compounded if he were rewarded with victory.
LOAD-DATE: October 22, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
EDITORIAL: Robocalls highlight McCain's descent: In pursuit of the presidency, McCain sullied his reputation for honor and honesty.
BYLINE: The Roanoke Times, Va.
Oct. 21--In the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina, Sen. John McCain was a victim of Karl Rove, the win-at-all-costs political adviser to President Bush.
In 2008, McCain has become the foremost practitioner of Rovian politics, tossing his hard-won reputation as a straight-talking, honorable politician into the nearest trash can.
The latest, surest sign of McCain's descent into the gutter is his embrace of a tactic he denounced in 2000: sleazy robocalls aimed at tearing down his opponent with misleading attacks.
Thanks to Virginia's battleground state status, you may be lucky enough to receive several of these automated phone calls, like this one about Obama's "relationship" with William Ayers:
"You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans."
That makes it sound like Obama was part of the Weather Underground with Ayers during the '60s, when the fact is that by the time Obama met him, Ayers was an education professor respected in Chicago circles by Republicans and Democrats alike. Their "relationship" didn't extend beyond service on a couple of boards -- a level of association that would damn dozens of upstanding Republicans who served in similar situations with Ayers over the years.
Adding insult to his own injury, there have been reports that McCain hired the same firm for this robocall campaign that attacked him in 2000.
A couple of weeks ago, there was a brief sign that the McCain of 2000 had become disgusted with himself -- or at least what his relentlessly negative campaign had wrought.
After weeks of his campaign -- especially his designated pitbull in lipstick, Sarah Palin -- painting Obama as dangerous, unAmerican and radical, McCain stood up to the increasingly ugly crowds at his own rallies.
He took the microphone back from a woman who called Obama "an Arab," and corrected her and said that Obama is "a decent, family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."
When he told another crowd that, despite what his campaign had been saying at rallies and in commercials, there was no reason to fear an Obama presidency, he was booed.
But those moments were fleeting. Sunday, McCain angrily defended the robocalls, denying there was anything misleading about them.
A man who tried to make honor and honesty his defining characteristics, McCain sacrificed his reputation in pursuit of the presidency. It is a tragedy that could only be compounded if he were rewarded with victory.
To see more of The Roanoke Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.roanoke.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, The Roanoke Times, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 22, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 21, 2008 Tuesday
Met 2 Edition
McCain Emphasizes Distance From Bush;
Criticism of Administration Stepped Up
BYLINE: Michael Abramowitz and Michael D. Shear; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
DATELINE: BELTON, Mo., Oct. 20
Battling George W. Bush for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000, John McCain lashed out at the Texas governor, denouncing his proposed tax cuts as a giveaway to the rich.
Eight years later, this time running as the Republican presidential nominee, the senator from Arizona is again criticizing Bush and his financial policies, as he renews his efforts to demonstrate that he would represent a departure from the current administration.
At virtually every campaign stop, McCain is reprising a line he used last Wednesday in his final debate with Sen. Barack Obama: "I am not George Bush." And in a television ad introduced last week, McCain looks into the camera and says, "The last eight years haven't worked very well, have they?"
As he struggles to pull his campaign out from beneath the shadow of a president whose approval ratings have reached historic lows, McCain is offering some of his toughest criticism of the Bush White House. In recent weeks, he has focused his message on the administration's handling of the nation's financial crisis, suggesting that the Treasury Department has been more interested in "bailing out the banks" than helping struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.
"I am so disturbed that this administration has not done what we have to do, and that is to go out and buy up these bad mortgages," McCain told Jewish leaders in a conference call Sunday morning.
The new rhetoric has drawn roars of applause at some campaign stops and represents a tacit acknowledgment that McCain has not distanced himself sufficiently from the administration in his bid. One senior adviser said the campaign had to do something to counteract the Obama operation's decision to spend "tens of millions of dollars pushing" the idea that McCain is a virtual clone of Bush. "The majority of the swing voters don't believe it, but some do, and we have to convince them that we are different from Bush," said this adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss campaign strategy.
Bush is hardly the only problem for McCain as he struggles to close a gap with Obama. Voters perceive Obama as better prepared to handle the economic crisis, the GOP brand has been severely tarnished in recent years, and McCain is at a huge financial disadvantage.
But with the Republican president's approval ratings languishing, the perceived connection with him is a significant drag on the party's nominee. Nearly half of all voters in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll said McCain would mainly carry on Bush's policies, and among those who would consider a McCain presidency as a continuation of the current administration, 90 percent support Obama. And the prized independent voters who link McCain and Bush also overwhelmingly tilt toward the Democrat.
McCain has made progress in distancing himself from the president. Among independents, 54 percent now see the senator as offering a new direction, up from 44 percent before the third presidential debate, where he introduced his new language on Bush.
Among all likely voters, the percentage associating McCain with Bush is less than 50 percent for the first time, albeit barely, at 49 percent. Forty-eight percent said McCain would mainly continue to lead in Bush's footsteps.
A senior Republican close to the campaign said internal GOP polling underscores those findings.
"It's night and day," the source said. "You have somebody whose public approval is in the 20s. There's just not a 'there' there anymore in terms of residual support."
After the two waged a fierce campaign for the Republican nomination in 2000, McCain remained a burr in Bush's side in the early part of his administration, although he strongly supported the Iraq war and came to endorse Bush's tax cuts despite initial misgivings. During his 2008 campaign, McCain has irritated the White House with his coolness, criticizing as a "failure" its response to Hurricane Katrina and almost never appearing in public with Bush.
Yet these efforts have done little to convince a skeptical electorate. Even McCain's acknowledgment of Bush's wartime leadership at the Republican National Convention, without mentioning him by name, made listeners unhappy, according to internal GOP focus groups.
Many Democrats doubt that McCain will be able to make enough progress to change the trajectory of the race in the final two weeks, no matter what new rhetoric he may offer. They argue that he dug his own grave when he embraced Republican orthodoxy on the utility of tax cuts to help stimulate economic growth, shifting his own position and embracing the approach Bush pushed aggressively.
"McCain, like Bush, is emerging as someone who makes rapid, gut-level decisions," said Bill Galston, a centrist Democratic strategist who worked in the Clinton White House and is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He said McCain "has made remarkably little headway with the 'I'm not Bush' argument."
Mark McKinnon, Bush's former media adviser and a former consultant for McCain, played down the idea that the president is as much of a burden as his party label is this year. "I think voters figured out long ago that John McCain is not George Bush," he wrote in an e-mail exchange. "But it doesn't matter much either way. John McCain is a Republican, and in the current environment, that's about a 10-point anchor dragging on your chances."
McCain spent Monday in Missouri, a critical swing state, where he continued his efforts to sow unease about Obama's economic policies as a plan to redistribute wealth rather than grow the economy. "I think a lot of blame is put on George Bush that does not deserve to be there," said Carol Pappas, 52, a stay-at-home mom. "On the other hand, a lot of Americans are blaming George Bush for the economy, which I disagree with. In order to have a chance in this election, McCain . . . has to have them understand that this is not another eight years of what they perceive as bad government."
Some of the people at a rally in St. Louis criticized Obama for making more of a connection between Bush and McCain than is warranted. "He isn't George Bush," said Cathy Beck, 49, who runs a small business with her husband. "I think this has been one of the unfairest campaigns of my lifetime."
Craig Shirley, a conservative consultant and author of the forthcoming "Rendezvous With Destiny," about Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign, said in an interview that McCain is doing the "right thing" before Election Day. But he said the senator avoided the one major break he could have made with Bush -- opposing the Wall Street rescue package.
Going against Bush would have put voters on notice that McCain is a different kind of politician, Shirley said.
"He would have helped himself immensely if he had opposed the bailout," he said. "All the elites were all arrayed against the American people. He would have been the populist champion standing up" to them.
Shear reported from Washington. Polling director Jon Cohen contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 21, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post; Sen. John McCain meets with local business leaders at Buckingham Smokehouse Bar-B-Q in Columbia, Mo.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
BYLINE: By John McCaslin, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE THE BELTWAY; A08
YOU BE THE JUDGE
"It is not true, I did not say that, and this is a case of a false accusation," Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican, told this columnist late Monday, referring to harsh statements attributed to her about Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama while she was a guest on MSNBC's "Hardball."
"It is amazing to me how the wind tunnel and spin can go around and around in an echo chamber. And this is simply a lie. I did not question Barack Obama's patriotism, I did not say he was anti-American. And the other accusation is that I was calling for members of Congress to be investigated on their anti-American views.
"That's absolutely a lie. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, today in the [Minnesota] Twin Cities made a statement that I had called for the investigation of members of Congress for being anti-American and holding anti-American views. That's an out-and-out bald-faced lie. I did not say that."
While a guest on the MSNBC program, Mrs. Bachmann said: "I think the people that Barack Obama has been associating with are anti-American, by and large."
Pressed further by the host, Chris Matthews, who was the first to use the word "anti-American," the congresswoman said of Mr. Obama: "Absolutely, I'm very concerned that he may have anti-American views."
Regarding Congress, she said: "The news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would, I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are if they are pro-America or anti-America."
BACK TO THE CAVE
This Friday, the National Archives and Records Administration will dedicate its new National Personnel Records Center Annex Facility - a retrofitted limestone cave, actually.
The approximately 400,000-square-foot cave has a total storage capacity of nearly two million cubic feet of records, according to the National Archives, which tells us the secure facility in Illinois will mostly house military medical records and records for civilian federal personnel who retired after 1973.
CAN WE TALK, DAD?
"There is a lot of peer pressure on college campuses for students to vote for Barack Obama," Karin Agness writes to Inside the Beltway. "I see it at the University of Virginia, where I am a student.
"I saw the new ad out last week by two of the stars of 'Gossip Girl.' In it, they encourage other young people to have 'the talk' with their parents, not about drugs or sex, but about voting for John McCain."
BARACK, JOHN & JOE
Yes, Joe Wurzelbacher's popularity is being tracked right alongside the support for presidential candidates Sen. Barack Obama and John McCain.
Better known as "Joe the Plumber," Mr. Wurzelbacher, for what he's worth to the campaign, is viewed favorably by 44 percent of Americans polled and unfavorably by 41 percent.
"He earns his best reviews from middle-income voters and entrepreneurs," notes the Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll released Monday.
The plumber aside, Mr. Obama at last count is attracting 50 percent of the vote, while Mr. McCain earned 46 percent, which suggests "the race may be tightening a bit."
"Prior to the past week, Obama had enjoyed a five to eight point advantage for several weeks," Rasmussen explains.
WISH LIST
Improving whistle-blower protections, halting the revolving door between the government and the private sector, increasing government transparency, and implementing multiple measures to improve and strengthen contract oversight are among the list of government-reform priorities that the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) sent Monday to the presidential transition teams of Democrat Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain.
'WITHER' GREEN
Prefer one presidential candidate over the other because of his environmental wish list?
Before casting any green votes, consider the Times of London headline of Monday, given the current worldwide financial crisis, blighted economies and ballooning deficits: "Environment will wither whoever wins U.S. election."
* John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or jmccaslin@washingtontimes .com.
LOAD-DATE: October 21, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
Todd Palin makes appearance in Martinsville
BYLINE: Ralph N. Paulk, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Oct. 20--MARTINSVILLE -- Todd Palin, husband of Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, served as an honorary race official during today's TUMS QuikPak 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
Palin, campaigning on behalf of Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, toured the pit area and visited with NASCAR officials and team members. His appearance was among several weekend stops by the McCain campaign in key battleground states Virginia and North Carolina.
Palin was introduced at the drivers' meeting before the Sprint Cup event. He appeared in the media center briefly before greeting fans as they filed into the racetrack for Race 6 of the Chase for the Cup.
Palin, who was joined by former governor and senator George Allen and U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) at the race, told the crowd, "I've done a little racing myself."
Palin said being around the racetrack made him want to take a Sprint Cup car for a spin.
"It's just a thrill for us to be down here and I'll leave my telephone number with any NASCAR racer if they want to come up and go run with us," said Palin, a a commercial fisherman.
For now, Palin's focus is campaigning. Admittedly, he said it isn't his forte.
"We've got one politician in the house and I've been going around the last few days touching on who we are as far as sportsmen and fishermen and hunters, and then today, being part of an American tradition, racing," he said.
Palin's visit comes on the heels of Gov. Palin's visit to Richmond International Raceway earlier this week. Cindy McCain visited with drivers, team owners and NASCAR officials prior to last weekend's events at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., and McCain made an appearance at Loudon, N.H. for the first Chase race.
On Friday, South Boston's Jeff Burton was asked if NASCAR officials should try to achieve some kind of political balance in the garage, by encouraging the appearance of Democratic nominees. So far, neither Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, have campaigned at an event, according to a NASCAR spokesman.
"On the surface of it I think what's best for all of us is to not make a decision until we have to walk into the booth," Burton said. "I think the more exposure that we have to the candidates the better we can make that decision.
"This is always been a very conservative garage if you think about the politicians that have come. They typically have been conservative politicians."
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 20, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081020-RV-Todd-Palin-makes-appearance-in-Martinsville-1020
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 20, 2008 Monday
Metro Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B6
When the topic is abortion, Palin is the radical
As the McCain campaign grows increasingly desperate, it has openly embraced the strategy of smearing Barack Obama, with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin leading the charge in front of increasingly thuggish crowds. Their utter shamelessness in all this is appalling, and says as much about their moral character as about how few substantive ideas they have to offer.
First there was Palin's recycled nonsense about Obama "palling around with terrorists," and now she is claiming that he is a radical on abortion. The true radical on this issue is, of course, Palin herself, who believes abortion should be illegal even in the case of rape.
In her view, the government should have the right to dictate to a rape victim that she will carry her rapist's fetus to term. That is an extremist, profoundly anti-freedom position and is far more radical than any position Obama holds on any issue.
The true moderates on abortion are the ones who (unlike Palin) support forms of sex education that will actually reduce, rather than increase, abortions, and who recognize the complexities of the moral and legal issues, as reflected in the moderate, compromise position of Roe v. Wade.
William J. FitzPatrick
Blacksburg
Not politics, but a defense of faith
Re: "Don't play politics with prayer," Oct. 10 commentary (criticizing a recent flap over a Virginia State Police decision to require nondenominational prayers):
As a minister, Nelson Harris's passion should be to lead people to faith in Jesus Christ.
This has nothing to do with politics or a partisan agenda. This is an attack on our religious freedom in this country. As a nation we can not reject Jesus Christ and expect God to bless us. It will not happen.
Vicky Slayton
Roanoke
McCain's own ego has caused him to 'cave'
I am a 1964 U.S. Naval Academy graduate and was a Navy pilot. I flew combat support missions in Vietnam. Politically, I have been a lifelong Republican. Given this background, one might expect me to be a John McCain supporter.
In truth, I strongly oppose McCain for president. Why? McCain has long stressed strength of character, including integrity, honesty and competence. He reportedly suffered at the hands of his Vietnamese captors. Supposedly, it was strength of character that permitted him to survive without "caving."
Where now is his character? McCain has demonstrated the willingness, even eagerness to lie, deceive and smear his political opponent in order to win the election. I surmise that lust for the presidency has caused McCain's moral collapse.
Ironically, his ego and self-absorption have caused him to compromise his integrity and truthfulness. He has "caved," something his wartime captors were unable to cause.
Competence? The singular act of choosing the supremely unqualified Sarah Palin as his running mate is a consummate example of McCain's incompetence. It also suggests a disdain for the intelligence of voters and callous disregard for the welfare of our country.
George (DALE) Black
Blacksburg
Media aren't looking for dirt on the Dems
I find it hard to believe that the news media can find all sorts of garbage about McCain/Palin but Obama/Biden are perfect. Could it be that the media are trying to influence the election? What happened to reporting the news and not making the news?
Johnny Hale
Salem
Southwest Virginia needs change, too
Re: "McCain offers a clear choice to Western Virginia," Oct. 9 commentary by Jerry Kilgore:
I question John McCain's "independent streak" and Southwest Virginia's desire to have no interference from government.
Our financial crisis hurts Southwest Virginia, too, and President Bush says it's the fault of poor regulation. Now we'll pay $700 billion to recover.
Clean coal is a dream. The cost ($1,800-plus/kw hour) is more than extracting and refining oil. Estimates put its commercial viability and widely adopted use at 2020 or 2025.
Coal mining in Southwest Virginia is not a big deal. Miners know coal is on the way out. United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts enthusiastically endorses Barack Obama. West Virginia voters support energy independence through wind and solar power, according to Opinion Research Corp.
The Second Amendment is the law of the land. No president can change it. Obama is on record that he supports the Second Amendment and will not take away guns. He is also on record saying he supports the Supreme Court decision to knock down the D.C. gun ban. Gun enthusiasts seem to have only one issue. They sound like Gov. Sarah Palin: "sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Frederick Fuller
Roanoke
Respect for McCain died with attacks
I liked, respected and admired Sen. John McCain. I respected his ability to tell it like it is. I admired his courage and knew in my heart that I would never have survived that cell in Hanoi.
I was impressed with the things he was able to accomplish in a bipartisan way. And in the scrambled spectacle that was the early days of campaigning, McCain stood out as one of that motley bunch you could imagine being president.
That was then. This is now. My stomach turns when I watch those fired-up rallies where the visceral hate for Sen. Barack Obama is fanned until someone in the rabid crowd screams, "Kill him."
Just when you hope you may have seen the worst of those despicable 30-second diatribes of fetid rhetoric that pass for campaign commercials, up pops another one to soil the TV screen. Sadly, McCain has become a sorry caricature of his own worst self -- a frustrated, angry, unstable, desperate old man.
What is truly terrifying in all this, however, is to contemplate, if you dare, that which is but a heartbeat away.
John Sabean
Hillsville
Racist vitriol is so 1960s
It's hard to believe that, in 2008, regular people are standing up in front of TV cameras at John McCain rallies shouting racial epithets and threatening the life of Barack Obama.
I'm sure none of those people would consider themselves racist. It's just that they couldn't stand to live in an America where someone who doesn't have lily white skin like theirs might be president -- which is sort of the same thing, isn't it? Welcome back to the 1960s.
If anyone reading this has the least hesitation about voting for Obama simply because his skin is a different tone from theirs, I encourage them to stay home on Nov. 4. If race, skin color, the name his parents gave him or false statements about his religious preference are what are going to guide your hand in the election booth, please, stay home.
If you do have doubts, but you can do some serious soul-searching between now and Nov. 4 and you can come to the conclusion that it's the person and his or her experience, policies and plans that matters, then by all means, please vote -- for Obama.
Jennings Heilig
Newport
Cut the price, and increase circulation
You all are getting ready to get a lesson in Reaganomics versus Obamomics. When you raise the price of the paper from 50 cents to 75 cents, I will not buy one every day as I currently do. Other people will not either.
Circulation will fall. Ad revenue and circulation revenue will fall. Profits will fall. More cost-cutting measures will be needed.
But, suppose you cut the price of the paper to 25 cents. More people would buy the paper. (I imagine a whole lot more would buy it if not for the marked liberal bias.) Ad revenue goes up. Things are better. It worked for both Reagan and Bush. You could look it up if you don't believe me.
John Boswell
Wytheville
LOAD-DATE: October 22, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 20, 2008 Monday
Met 2 Edition
As Fuel Prices Fall, Will Push For Alternatives Lose Steam?
BYLINE: Steven Mufson; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Just four months ago, a conference here on electric cars drew four times as many people as expected. District fire marshals ordered some of the crowd to leave, and the atmosphere was more like that of a rock concert than an energy conference. A brief film depicted an electric car owner driving off with a beautiful woman to the strains of "The Power of Love" while her original companion struggles to pay for gasoline. The audience cheered.
One discordant note in the series of enthusiastic speeches came from Bill Reinert, one of the Toyota Prius designers. He cautioned that designing and ramping up production of a new car takes five years.
"If oil goes down to $60 or $70 a barrel and gasoline gets back to $2.50 a gallon, and that very possibly could happen," he said, "will that demand stay the same or will we shift back up?"
It didn't take five years to hit those numbers. One type of oil shock has given way to another. Even more swiftly than the price of oil rose, it has tumbled to the range that seemed far-fetched when Reinert spoke and oil was more than $130 a barrel. Now that drop threatens a wide variety of game-changing plans to find alternatives to oil or ways to drastically reduce U.S. consumption.
"Declining oil prices can give us an artificial and temporary sense that reducing oil consumption and energy consumption is an issue we can put off," said Greg Kats, a managing director of Good Energies, a multibillion-dollar venture capital firm that invests in global clean energy.
The credit crisis is compounding that threat by making it more difficult to finance capital-intensive projects, whether they are new auto assembly lines or solar panels or wind turbines. General Motors has been touting the Chevy Volt as the first mass-marketed, plug-in hybrid vehicle. GM, which has been holding merger talks with Chrysler, believes the project will help justify federal financing. It hopes to deliver the car by the end of 2010.
Tesla Motors, a maker of a handful of pricey electric sports cars, had planned to unveil a cheaper sedan next year. But on Thursday it delayed the new model because of trouble lining up financing. It also said it would close two offices and has replaced its chief executive.
The uncertain future of electric cars points to a sticky aspect of the global oil equation. The price of oil can change rapidly, but responses that would cut petroleum use take time. As oil prices climbed, major automakers including GM, Mitsubishi, Renault-Nissan and Toyota moved ahead with plans to produce plug-in vehicles. But the first of those cars won't be ready for a couple of years. What the price of oil will be then, and what consumers' appetite for plug-in cars will be then, is anybody's guess.
Focusing on Efficiency
Doing something about the amount of gasoline Americans use is essential to defusing future oil shocks. The American motorist is among the most profligate in the world. More than one out of every nine barrels of oil produced worldwide ends up in the gas tanks of cars in the United States. The amount of petroleum burned by U.S. motorists exceeds the entire crude oil output of Saudi Arabia, and that has propped up demand -- and prices.
Yet U.S. cars are among the least fuel efficient in the world. "The U.S. dependence on oil imports is based on waste, not on needs," said Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Italian oil giant Eni.
Electric cars aren't the only answer. More efficient cars, whether better combustion engines or hybrids like the Prius, may be a cheaper way to achieve big fuel savings.
Some firms are creating substitute fuels such as ethanol derived from corn or diesel derived from algae. Biofuel players range from the oil majors, such as BP and Royal Dutch Shell, to ethanol giants VeraSun Energy and Poet, to tiny firms like Solarzyme, which started in its founders' garage five years ago and is now testing an algae catalyst in a large commercial vat. Many firms are working on cellulosic ethanol, derived from organic materials such as grasses or wood chips, but those factories are still in the pilot or demonstration stage.
Almost all of those alternatives rely on federal subsidies or are counting on lower costs as technology evolves. The cheaper oil gets, the bigger those technological improvements need to be to compete.
The electric car has the potential for making a bigger impact than alternative fuels because it would be powered by the electricity grid, which relies on a mix of coal, nuclear, natural gas and renewable energy sources. Moreover, recharging an electric car is much cheaper than refueling a gasoline car.
Its proponents say the electric car has transformative potential that other transportation alternatives lack. "We want customers to see the Volt as the game changer it is, not only for the technology, but also for business, and maybe more importantly for the way the world drives," said Troy A. Clarke, president of GM North America.
"Reducing our oil dependency meaningfully in the U.S., under any scenario, requires radically improving the efficiency of our vehicles," says Saurin D. Shah, a vice president at investment firm Neuberger Berman who expects an explosion of hybrid and plug-in cars by 2030. He predicts hybrid and electric cars will replace conventional vehicles as swiftly as electric locomotives replaced steam-driven ones.
But because their batteries are expensive, plug-in cars are going to cost as much as $8,000 more than conventional gasoline cars. The lower the price of gasoline, the longer it is going to take for fuel savings to make up for the car purchase premium. That is one reason why Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) has proposed a $7,000 tax credit for consumers who buy electric cars. Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) favors a $5,000 tax credit for cars with ultra-low emissions.
A Long Road to Transition
More than a decade ago, GM killed an electric car called the EV1; the company said motorists weren't interested, but many analysts said a hidebound GM lacked interest. The car ended up as an expensive public-relations debacle. It didn't help that oil prices at the time had collapsed.
But even if oil prices are high, there are bumps in the road to a plug-in automobile future.
If large numbers of electric cars are plugged in at the wrong time of day, they could strain utility capacity. "Today, our electric grid cannot support massive quantities of plug-in hybrid vehicles very well," said Peter Darbee, chief executive of Pacific Gas and Electric. Depending on a utility's fuel mix, plug-in vehicles could boost particulates, or soot. And only half of Americans have electrical outlets where they park their cars at night, according to a major auto firm executive.
Electric vehicles might not solve all strategic issues, either. James Woolsey, former head of the CIA, promotes electric cars because, he says, "We can, we should, and we must, as a major national priority . . . absolutely, totally, completely destroy oil's monopoly" to break the U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
But Irving Mintzer, an energy expert, notes that most electric vehicle motors contain rare elements such as neodymium, and about 95 percent of the world's supply currently comes from China. The United States might swap one form of dependence for another, he said.
And then there is the question of consumer tastes and habits.
Alan L. Madian, director of consulting firm LECG, notes that it takes time for motorists to get used to new types of cars; it has taken a decade for Toyota to sell 1 million Priuses, less than 1 percent of the cars on the road. Madian said that even with "heroic" assumptions about the sales of new electric cars, they would make up 50 percent of new vehicles by 2030 and only 8 percent of cars on the road.
"These transitions take a long time," he said.
Financing Challenges
Ultimately the future of all alternatives to oil comes down to money. That's why one of the most intriguing promoters of electric cars isn't an automobile person at all.
Shai Agassi, once a contender for the chief executive slot at international software giant SAP, says that the right business model will put electric cars in the fast lane.
He wants to make owning an automobile more like owning a cellphone. In exchange for signing up for refueling service, he would give you an electric car for free. You could plug it in at public parking spaces or at home. You'd pay for electricity with a card, like a phone calling card. During long trips, motorists could pull into recharging stations resembling car washes and swap a battery running low on juice for one fully charged in just a bit more time than it takes to fill a tank with gasoline and check the oil.
Agassi's plan will get a test drive in Israel and Denmark, whose governments have pledged support. Agassi's Silicon Valley-based firm Project Better Place has raised $200 million venture capital from the likes of Morgan Stanley, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Wolfensohn & Co. and oil refiner Israel Corp. Renault-Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn has promised to deliver tens of thousands of electric cars by 2011.
"We started with the following question: How do you run an entire country without oil?" said Agassi. The cost of installing half a million recharging stands and 120 battery swap stations would come to $5 billion, he said, considerably less than Israel's annual bill for oil imports -- at least earlier this year.
Falling oil prices, however, make Agassi's plan a tougher sell. With gasoline at $7 a gallon, he can recover the cost of the car he gives away through his recharging stations. The price at the pump, combined with heavy taxes, was higher than that in Israel and most of Europe this summer. But this week, prices fell even in countries with heavy fuel taxes; in Britain, prices fell as low as $5.40 a gallon.
Keeping electric car projects going could be even tougher for the big automakers in the United States, where fuel taxes are much smaller.
"If you have to spend X dollars and your profitability has just gone into the black hole and you're having issues getting financing and just keeping the lights on, are you going to spend a lot of money on a high-risk product?" asked analyst Shah. "Probably not."
LOAD-DATE: October 20, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Justin Sullivan -- Getty Images; Demand for electric cars like this Saturn hybrid may flag if gas prices keep sliding.
IMAGE
IMAGE; By Stelios Varias -- Reuters; Motorists filled up at a Woodbridge gas station on Friday. U.S. drivers are among the world's most profligate, yet U.S. cars rank low on efficiency.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 20, 2008 Monday
Regional Edition
The Democrats' Daunting Digits
BYLINE: Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
Numbers -- like hips -- don't lie.
In a political world increasingly dominated by spin and increasingly dismissive of substance, it's important from time to time to remember that, for all the back-and-forth, sometimes the numbers are the numbers.
The Fix was reminded of this late last week when we got our hands on a document detailing the massive state-by-state voter-registration gains scored by Democrats between the last presidential election and this one. The memo, which was produced by the Atlas Project, a Democratic research and analysis firm, and obtained late last week by The Fix, provided a bunch of eye-opening facts and figures.
To wit:
· In the 13 battleground states that require voters to register by party, there are nearly 1.5 million more Democrats than at this time in 2004. The comparable Republican numbers, by contrast, have fallen by 61,000 during that time.
· Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by more than 3.3 million in these same 13 battleground states, roughly double the edge -- 1.8 million -- they enjoyed over the GOP four years ago.
· In the 10 battleground states without voter registration by party, total registration has risen by 1.4 million between 2004 and 2008.
· In Florida, there are almost 400,000 more registered Democrats today than in 2004, while Republican registrants have grown by less than 150,000 in that same time. In Pennsylvania, Democratic registration has increased by more than 430,000 since 2004 while GOP registration has gone up by 175,000. And in North Carolina, Democrats have added nearly 175,000 new voters, compared with just under 61,000 for Republicans.
While the above numbers are impressive for Democrats, it's important to remember that simply being registered as a voter for one party or the other doesn't guarantee a vote for Barack Obama or John McCain. Democrats, for decades, have enjoyed voter-registration edges in the South, for example, but have struggled to win these states because of the culturally conservative nature of registered Democrats.
Whether these registration numbers will pay off in actual votes for Obama remains to be seen. But they are yet another testament to the decided tilt of the national playing field toward Democrats this fall.
An Obama Effect in Missouri?
Barack Obama drew 100,000 people in St. Louis on Saturday afternoon, and at least 75,000 people in Kansas City a few hours later. That's very good news for Kay Barnes and Judy Baker.
The two Democrats are trying to win solidly Republican House seats, and the harder Obama works the Show-Me State, the better their chances of scoring upsets.
Baker, a state House member, is competing against banker Blaine Luetkemeyer for the 9th District seat being vacated by Republican Kenny Hulshof, who is running for governor (though trailing state Attorney General Jay Nixon badly in polling). Democratic political analysts said a big Obama turnout in Columbia, home to the University of Missouri, could tip the scale for local resident Baker, even though John Kerry lost the 9th District to President Bush by 59 percent to 41 percent in 2004. Recent polls show a tight race with a large undecided vote.
Barnes faces longer odds in her bid to unseat GOP Rep. Sam Graves in the northwestern 6th District. The former Kansas City mayor is getting a big assist from Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, who beat GOP incumbent Jim Talent in 2006 in one of that cycle's bigger upsets. Barnes has a shot if turnout is huge in the Kansas City suburbs at the district's edge, and so long as McCain's coattails don't drive new Graves voters to the polls in the more rural parts of the district.
Speaking to reporters after Obama's St. Louis rally on Sunday, McCaskill said the harshly negative turn that McCain's campaign had taken in Missouri, with its blast of anti-Obama robo-calls and direct mail, could repel even the most conservative rural voters.
McCaskill called the tactics "mean," "nasty" and "petty" and added: "The more they do that, the more it's going to chase people to our side."
'Anti-' Maimed?
The ghost of Mike Pappas may be coming back to haunt Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).
In 1998, Pappas, then a freshman Republican congressman from New Jersey, was cruising to reelection when he took to the House floor to read an homage to independent counsel Kenneth Starr set to the tune of the children's classic "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Um, not smart. The song caused a national fervor and led directly to Pappas's defeat at the hands of five-time "Jeopardy" champion Rush Holt.
Bachmann could be headed down that same ignominious path after comments she made on MSNBC last week in which she expressed concern that Barack Obama holds "anti-American" views.
The remark, which quickly drew national attention, has re-invigorated Democratic candidate Elwyn Tinklenberg (awesome name!), who has raised more than $600,000 since Bachmann's appearance Friday on "Hardball."
National Democrats, buoyed by an internal poll last week that showed Bachmann leading Tinklenberg by a narrow margin of 42 percent to 38 percent, are pouncing and are set to begin $1 million worth of television advertising in the district tomorrow.
Bachmann, elected in 2006, should have had little trouble holding this suburban Twin Cities district, which President George W. Bush carried in 2004 with 57 percent. But she has been a lightning rod for controversy throughout her first two years in office and is now in the fight of her political life.
Could "anti-American" be the new "Twinkle, Twinkle Kenneth Starr"?
1 DAY: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton travels to the Twin Cities to campaign with comedian Al Franken (D) in his race against Sen. Norm Coleman (R). "Hillary Clinton is a fighter for the middle class, a champion for change, and a friend and hero of mine," said Franken. Left unsaid: He's good enough, he's smart enough, and doggone it, people like him.
9 DAYS: Barack Obama floods the airwaves -- or at least the broadcast channels -- with a 30-minute infomercial/political ad. The last man to do such a thing? Ross Perot, way back in 1992.
LOAD-DATE: October 20, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post; Brianna and Joshua Parker, 15 and 11, with parents Jerome and Deborah behind them and pal Jayden Brown, 9, at right, cheer in Kansas City.
IMAGE
IMAGE; The turnout for Obama in St. Louis and Kansas City is a good sign for underdog Missouri Democratic congressional candidates Kay Barnes, left, and Judy Baker.
IMAGE; C-span; Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) seems to have missed the musical moral of the story that put the "then-" in then-Rep. Mike Pappas.
IMAGE
IMAGE
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 20, 2008 Monday
Met 2 Edition
Obama Endorsed By Colin Powell;
Democrat Wins Praise From Prominent Republican, Announces Record $150 Million Fundraising Month
BYLINE: Karen DeYoung; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Colin L. Powell yesterday became the most prominent Republican to endorse Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, with the former secretary of state and retired four-star general declaring the senator from Illinois to be a "transformational" figure who would "electrify our country . . . [and] the world."
Powell's endorsement, on NBC's "Meet the Press," came as Obama's campaign announced it had raised more than $150 million in September, more than doubling the previous record for monthly fundraising and giving him a vast financial advantage over Republican John McCain in the final weeks before Election Day.
Powell said he respects McCain and considers him a friend. But he said that McCain's "unsure" response to the ongoing economic crisis and his selection of a running mate whom "I don't believe is ready to be president of the United States" disappointed him, as had the recent negative tenor of McCain's campaign and a "narrower and narrower" Republican approach to serious national problems.
"I watched Mr. Obama," particularly in recent weeks, Powell said, and "he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge . . . in not just jumping in and changing every day, but showing intellectual vigor."
Obama "has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people," he said. "He is crossing lines -- ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines." Powell added that the Democratic senator had chosen in Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. a running mate who "is ready to be president on Day One."
In a telephone interview yesterday, Powell said his decision had been "emerging since the conventions, when I heard the convention speeches, saw who the vice presidential candidates were and then watched the debates."
"The real question," he said, "was whether to go public. . . . I just felt I had to, and I crossed that bridge last week" after consulting with close friends and family members. He said he had not informed either campaign in advance.
The announcement is a blow to McCain, a fellow Vietnam War veteran whose 2000 presidential campaign Powell supported before George W. Bush won the Republican nomination. McCain had publicly pledged during that campaign to name Powell as his secretary of state.
McCain sought to shrug off yesterday's endorsement, saying that he has always "admired and respected" Powell and that it "doesn't come as a surprise." He said that he was pleased to have the support of four other former Republican secretaries of state, and he said he had "a respectful disagreement" with Powell over whether Obama is ready to lead the country.
Powell, 71, served as secretary of state during President Bush's first term, but most of the power of his endorsement comes from his 35-year military career, during which he served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and earlier as national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan.
Still reviled by some Democrats for his support of the Iraq war, Powell did not oppose the 2003 decision to invade the country. But inside the administration, and in public after leaving office, he was sharply critical of the conduct of the occupation. He has said that his February 2003 United Nations speech on Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction was based on faulty intelligence and remains a "blot" on his record.
Since his departure from government in January 2005, however, Powell has regained much of the stature he held before joining the Bush administration; he remains highly respected at home and abroad as a foreign policy "pragmatist" and political centrist. His stamp of approval is likely to improve Obama's already favorable chances in once-reliable Republican states such as Virginia, and with the military community.
Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), on CBS's "Face the Nation," called Powell a "uniting figure" whose endorsement should overcome any lingering concern over Obama's lack of national security experience.
Republican former House speaker Newt Gingrich said on ABC's "This Week": "What that just did in one sound bite -- and I assume that sound bite will end up in an ad -- is it eliminated the experience argument. How are you going to say the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, former national security adviser, former secretary of state was taken in?"
Campaigning in North Carolina, Obama said he was "beyond honored and deeply humbled to have the support" of "a great soldier, a great statesman and a great American." A campaign spokesman said Obama called Powell after his appearance to thank him and say that he looked forward to taking advantage of Powell's advice in the two weeks before the election and, if he is elected, over the next four years.
Powell, an African American who headed the armed forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, was touted in 1995 as the only person who could upset Clinton's 1996 reelection bid. Then a registered independent, he rejected a run at the presidency but announced he would join the Republican Party and try to reverse what he considered its dangerous turn to the right. But Powell quickly withdrew from politics and turned his attention to working with minority youth. He reentered the political limelight when he agreed to support George W. Bush's 2000 campaign.
In his television appearance yesterday, Powell said that he had watched McCain and Obama over the past two years and told "my beloved friend and colleague . . . a friend of 25 years, 'John, I love you, but I'm not just going to vote for you on the basis of our affectionate friendship.' " And Powell said he told Obama: "I'm not going to vote for you just because you're black. . . . You have to pass the test of 'Do you have enough experience? Do you bring the judgment to the table that would give us confidence that you would be a good president?' "
During the recent economic crisis, Powell said, Obama had shown "steadiness, intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge." As for McCain, he said, "I've found that he was a little unsure as to how to deal with the economic problems that we were having, and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem. And that concerned me. I got the sensing that he hasn't had a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had."
Powell said he was also concerned by McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whom he called "a distinguished woman" but someone not ready to be president. "That raised some question in my mind as to [McCain's] judgment," he said.
In explaining his decision, Powell was more critical of the Republican Party and McCain's campaign than of the candidate himself. He said Republican attempts to tie Obama to the 1960s domestic terrorism of William Ayers amounted to "demagoguery" and a distraction from pressing issues.
"I understand what politics is all about," Powell said, ". . . but I think this goes too far. . . . It's not what people are looking for."
Powell also said he was troubled by Republicans who "said such things as 'Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well, the correct answer is 'He is not a Muslim; he is a Christian. He's always been a Christian.' But the really right answer is 'What if he is?' "
"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?" he added. ". . . Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could become president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim, and he might be associated with terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America."
Powell, who supports affirmative action for minorities and abortion rights, has also expressed concern about McCain's positions on domestic social issues. "I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court," he said.
While saying that race was not a decisive factor in his decision, Powell said, "I can't deny that it will be a historic event for an African American to become the president."
Powell said he would not campaign for Obama, noting the short amount of time that remains until Election Day. He also said that he is "in no way interested in returning to government" but that he would consider any offers made by the next president.
Staff writers Michael Abramowitz, traveling with the McCain campaign, and Shailagh Murray, traveling with the Obama campaign, contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 20, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Brendan Smialowski -- "meet The Press" Via Associated Press; Colin Powell, former Bush secretary of state, told Tom Brokaw he was concerned about the direction of his friend John McCain's campaign.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 20, 2008 Monday
Suburban Edition
Obama's September Haul Provides Huge Advertising Edge;
Amount More Than Doubles Old Record
BYLINE: Matthew Mosk; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama announced yesterday that he raised more than $150 million in September, obliterating previous fundraising records and giving him an enormous tactical advantage over Republican Sen. John McCain in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.
With tens of millions more to spend than McCain, Obama has gone on the offensive in dozens of states, including several once considered long shots, such as North Carolina, Virginia and Missouri. He is running three television ads to every one aired by McCain, and he has built a massive operation to reach voters on Election Day.
The campaign has raised so much money that it is considering passing some along to Democratic Party committees to try to help grow the party's majorities in Congress, according to a campaign source.
Obama's September fundraising effort well more than doubled the record of $67 million that he set in August and more than tripled the record set during the 2004 race. The Democrat did it largely by continuing to tap the enthusiasm of novice donors contacted through Web ads and e-mail appeals. The campaign said 632,000 people made their first donation to Obama in September, and the average contribution was less than $100.
The single biggest spike in online giving for the month came when the campaign took in $10 million between convention speeches by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOP's vice presidential pick, and McCain.
Overall, 3.1 million donors have contributed to Obama's campaign, which has raised more than $575 million through the primaries and general-election campaign.
Veteran campaign finance experts called the September effort staggering, noting that Obama raised on average more than $200,000 an hour. "He has just completely changed the scale of presidential fundraising," said Anthony Corrado, who has been writing about presidential fundraising since the mid 1980s.
Unlike Obama, McCain opted to take $84 million in public funding for the general election and to bank on the support of the Republican National Committee, which raised $66 million last month. The Democratic National Committee announced that it raised $50 million in September.
McCain spent $32.3 million of the public funds last month, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, his campaign reported last night. Two-thirds of that amount, $22.6 million, went for advertising.
Obama's decision to become the first presidential candidate in history not to take public money was considered a gamble, especially because it meant being criticized for breaking a pledge to work within the confines of a public financing system born out of Watergate-era reforms.
"I said at the time that I thought McCain would not be particularly disadvantaged by taking public funds," said Bradley Smith, a former Republican appointee to the FEC. "Then Senator Obama goes out and doubles anything that's been seen before. It really is amazing."
The gamble has been paying off for weeks. Instead of having to choose which battleground states to which he will direct resources, as McCain is forced to do, Obama is spending prolifically in all of them.
Instead of reaching out to voters primarily on television, through the mail, and in automated calls, as McCain is doing, Obama is running ads that are popping up in such unconventional spots as Web sites, infomercials and video games.
Instead of running only negative ads during the campaign's final month, as McCain has done, Obama has run not only just as many negative spots, but also more positive ones.
"You see it in the breadth of the ad campaign. You see it in the enormity of the organization. They have not been forced to make resource choices that are typical in a presidential campaign," Corrado said.
Obama's efforts in Florida, where he began airing television ads weeks before McCain, highlight the difference having so much money can make. The head start was a trademark of his primary campaign, but Republicans in the state said Obama was throwing money down the drain in a state he could not win.
"Many people thought it was a head fake, even in the Democratic party," said Mark Gilbert, a top Obama bundler in Florida. "But it's the reason you see the very, very close race there now."
At the same time, Obama is spending in states he has virtually no chance of winning, such as Utah, where Gilbert has a second home.
"They know they're in the reddest of the red states," Gilbert said. "But his supporters are helping by going into western Colorado. They're going into Nevada to help with the ground game there. And the campaign knows that putting some resources there sends the message that Senator Obama wants to be president of all 50 states."
Obama's fundraising effort began taking shape in January 2007, when he first sat down with financial advisers in a rented office suite, three blocks from the Capitol. Obama showed them the thin list of potential donors he had gathered during his 2004 Senate bid and while helping other politicians in 2006. The aides were unimpressed.
The plan they devised involved a novel recipe for fundraising. It would be one part Howard Dean, whose 2004 Democratic primary campaign was the first to harness the power of the Internet to raise cash. And it would be one part Sen. John F. Kerry, the party's 2004 nominee, who built an impressive structure for tapping support from those who could write checks up to the limit of what election laws would allow.
During the primaries, Obama had help from scores of bundlers, many from long-standing Democratic money circles in Hollywood and on Wall Street, and many who joined from his home town of Chicago. But Peter Daou, a key Internet strategist to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's primary bid, said it was the sophistication of Obama's online fundraising effort that set him apart.
"They've taken things we've all used for a couple years now and turned it into a well-oiled machine," Daou said. "They've been creative and innovative along the way, certainly. But this is not just gimmicks. To me they're like the Michael Jordan of fundraising."
Republican National Committee officials have expressed concerns about the potential for abuse with small-dollar fundraising on this scale. They have cited examples of fake names used to donate through the Internet and an example of a foreign contribution, which was returned. The Obama campaign has said it has vetted donations as quickly as possible and would return any questionable contributions.
In June, the Center for Responsive Politics and several other campaign finance groups urged Obama and McCain to publish information about their small donors -- election law does not require campaigns to release information about donors who give less than $200.
Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the center, said the Obama campaign could have avoided questions about its donations had it responded. At the same time, Ritsch said, there is nothing to suggest that fake or foreign donations are a large-scale problem.
"It's very hard to corrupt the system on a large scale," he said. "The amount of coordination that would be required to corrupt a campaign that's raised more than half a billion dollars is really just impossible."
LOAD-DATE: October 20, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post; Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has raised enough money to blanket the airwaves and place ads in nontraditional spots, such as video games.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
Plumber Joe vs. Brawler Josh
BYLINE: By Andrew Breitbart, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; BIG HOLLYWOOD; A04
With just over two weeks to go before the election, Oliver Stone and distributor Lion's Gate Films successfully detonated "W." in more than 2,000 U.S. theaters with the intent to exact electoral damage on John McCain and the Republican Party.
Mr. Stone denies this motivation, yet an online advertisement for the film reveals the obvious truth: President Bush - played in the movie by Josh Brolin - sits on a toilet with his pants around his ankles, fist clenched against his chin (a la Rodin's sculpture, "The Thinker" ) and features the message, "Sitting President: W. In Theaters Oct. 17."
That image of the president of the United States - and it is running across social-networking Web sites frequented by teenagers - should deeply offend fair-minded Americans that respect the office of the presidency, regardless of who inhabits the White House. Anyone with common sense should be outraged by its inherent indecency and the bad message it sends to young minds.
"W." is a vicious 129-minute negative political ad whose promotional trailers and online banner ads are untethered to federal election law. Mr. Stone, out of character, restrains his excesses to deliver a PG-13 product in order to reach key youth demographics. And the hyperpartisan cast is given carte blanche to electioneer by way of an immense publicity campaign delivered by the mainstream media that holds the exact same partisan inclinations.
This happens every cycle.
If it's not Oliver Stone, it's Michael Moore. If it's not "W" or "Fahrenheit 9/11," it's "The Contender." If Republicans cannot figure out by now that the game is rigged against them - and if they cannot figure out a way to play the game or defend against it - then they deserve to lose.
While the ultimate answer is that conservatives and Republicans need to invest in pop culture so that they can make and distribute their own propaganda, an achievable goal in the short term is to begin using "truth squads" - just like the ones employed by Sen. Barack Obama to strike fear in the hearts of those who would dare dissent.
Think what just happened to Joe Wurzelbacher, the working-class Ohio plumber whose question prompted Mr. Obama to let slip that as president he'd "spread the wealth around."
Through the magical work of Obama's well-funded campaign, the world now knows that "Joe the Plumber" has a lien on his house and doesn't have a license (though it is not required for the work he currently does). A false rumor also was widely reported that he was related to Charles Keating, a ghost of McCain scandal past.
It was all an effort to kill the messenger.
Instead of defending Mr. Obama's answer or backtracking from it, his well-paid team and countless netroot surrogates sought to ensure that this working-class Joe is rendered ineffective as a proxy for the McCain campaign, even if it means destroying his reputation.
In the case of neutralizing "W.," Republican operatives should go out and destroy the reputations of some of the film's key participants.
Attacking Mr. Stone would be a mistake. That would be so 1996. The 62-year-old Mr. Stone is already known as a Castro-loving conspiracy theorist who cultivates a reputation as a renowned deviant, even by Hollywood standards. So nothing reported about him could sully his name or "W." In fact, he wants to be attacked, the better to play the martyr.
Instead, Mr. Brolin, who defiles Mr. Bush every which way, should be the prime target for the Republican "truth squad."
After all, if Joe the Plumber's liens, licenses and (supposed) relatives make him such a despicable person that he poisons any questioning about Mr. Obama's "spread-the-wealth" socialism, then any doubts people may have about the Iraq war, attorney firings, government eavesdropping or any other issue is similarly poisoned if the messenger is as awful a human being as Joe the Plumber.
At the time of casting "W.," Mr. Stone readily admitted he did not want Barbra Streisand's son-in-law to play the leading role. "I needed a star," Mr. Stone said, "and Josh Brolin was not a star."
What he got instead was something darker.
According to reports, Mr. Brolin was arrested in 2004 after his wife, actress Diane Lane, called Los Angeles police at 3 a.m. to report that her husband hit her. While Miss Lane never pressed charges - according to experts, such refusal is typical in domestic-violence cases - voters (and moviegoers) should be given the police report so that they can make up their minds on what kind of man Mr. Brolin is.
There's more.
While filming "W." in Shreveport, La., Mr. Brolin was also arrested for public intoxication after police were called at 2 a.m. to stop a bar brawl at the Stray Cat. The actor compounded matters by resisting arrest, prompting a charge for that, too.
This pattern of violence should cause pacifists and feminists alike to protest Mr. Brolin until he comes clean. All decent husbands and brothers should join their wives and sisters in boycotting all his movies. And Miss Streisand, a purported advocate of women's rights, should be held accountable for not speaking out against her son-in-law.
Sauce ... now you can meet the gander And if all this strikes you as meaningless ad-hominem against Mr. Brolin that has nothing to do with either "W." as a work of art or the issues it brings up ... then, goose
Hereafter, Mr. Brolin should be known as "Josh the Brawler," yet another footnote in an Obama campaign that promised hope, but mostly delivered hate.
* Andrew Breitbart is the founder of the news Web site breitbart.com and is co-author of "Hollywood Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon - the Case Against Celebrity."
LOAD-DATE: October 20, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Cash-flush Obama steamrolls McCain in ads;
$150 million more raised in September
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
In the span of one hour, voters here are told - twice - that good Virginia jobs have vanished because "Washington sold them out with the help of people like John McCain."
Sen. Barack Obama's fundraising juggernaut has steamrolled his Republican rival, burying voters with ads - many of them negative - that he can afford to broadcast into the living rooms of red-state voters. There's no chance it will let up, as the campaign announced Sunday that Mr. Obama had raised more than $150 million in September alone.
The Obama ad attacking Mr. McCain as responsible for trade deals that led to job losses was one of nine 30-second spots that voters could see Friday during the 6 p.m. news.
Mr. Obama's ads that night painted him as someone who will fight for the American dream, who has a centrist health care plan and who will uphold gun rights. They portrayed Mr. McCain as an ally of President Bush whose health care plan would harm families.
The positive health care spot was Mr. Obama's largest buy - it ran more than 20,000 times across the country from mid-September through mid-October, according to Campaign Media Analysis Group.
In this Southwest Virginia region, just two of every 10 ads played Friday were positive. Two Obama attacks on Mr. McCain came in quick succession during the broadcast of "The Late Show" with David Letterman, followed by a Republican National Committee spot depicting Mr. Obama as inexperienced.
All the Republican ads shown Friday were negative, and an independent pro-Democratic veterans group ran a whopping six spots slamming Mr. McCain for his voting record.
The ads are not cheap. According to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, from Sept. 12 through Oct. 11, Mr. Obama spent $71 million on nearly 130,000 ads compared with $32 million on about 70,000 ads by Mr. McCain.
The Republican accepted $84 million in public financing and the spending limits that come with the money, while Mr. Obama is the first nominee to decline the cash since the public-financing system was set up, and has raised money instead from more than 2.5 million donors.
Fundraising totals for September are due Monday. Through Sept. 30, Mr. Obama has raised more than $600 million, shattering records. Mr. McCain had raised $240 million through August and had not released his September total.
Many of the McCain ads are funded by the RNC and also include attacks on congressional Democrats, which makes them legal within campaign finance framework.
During the debate last week the men sparred over whether they were running negative ads.
Obama supporter Rodney Sellers of High Point, N.C. thought Mr. McCain was mincing words when he insisted that his ads were not entirely negative. "All the ads we see are negative," Mr. Sellers said, adding he is inundated with commercials.
"All he did was put out negative ads with the Republican National Committee's name," he said.
The most frequently run McCain ad from Sept. 12 through Oct. 11 was an RNC spot that showed the Capitol dome casting a shadow over the nation and a young baby, saying the Democrats and Mr. Obama would bring "painful taxes." The spot ran 17,468 times, compared with several positive McCain spots that ran fewer than 10 times across the country.
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, is using his money in creative ways: His face is seen on billboards along highways. But not real ones: his face decorates the billboards in the background of some video-game car races. He also has his own cable channel devoted to his own infomercials.
The Democrat also has gone for the under-the-radar messaging: hip Web videos starring entertainment stars such as Justin Timberlake and Jennifer Hudson and banner ads on the Republican-favoring, high-traffic Web site Drudge Report.
Mr. Obama will even address the nation on Oct. 29 for 30 minutes, a major purchase that will force a several-minute delay of the start of the World Series.
The deluge seems to be paying off as Mr. Obama has gained in state polls and retains a solid national lead.
On Wednesday, for example, Northern Virginia television viewers were told multiple times that Mr. Obama has the sensible solution to two "extreme" views of health care and thinks education is the bedrock of the nation and that Mr. McCain has adopted Mr. Bush's economic plans. Voters tuning into the Northern Virginia news were asked, "Can we afford John McCain?" - six times.
The Republican did not speak up for himself - his ads were nowhere to be seen the entire day.
LOAD-DATE: October 20, 2008
GRAPHIC: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (right) addresses a rally in Fayetteville, N.C., on Sunday. He has raised more than $150 million in September alone. Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain waves to supporters in Westerville, Ohio, on Sunday. The Republican National Committee has funded many of Mr. McCain's ads. [2 Photos by J.M. Eddins Jr./The Washington Times and Associated Press]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 19, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
SECTION: COMMENTARY; Pg. E-1
* Editor's Note: The Times-Dispatch Editorial Pages asked each of the major-party candidates for Virginia's open seat in the U.S. Senate, being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. John Warner, to answer questions about issues they are likely to face if elected. Below are the unedited answers (except for minor style and grammar changes) from former Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore and former Democratic Gov. Mark Warner.
How do you define the federal government's principal responsibilities?
Gilmore: To provide for the defense of the nation and the people of the U.S. and to protect our national interests domestically, to ensure a civic environment for individuals and families to strive for accomplishment, obtain independence, and enjoy opportunity.
Warner: The federal government's primary responsibility is to protect our national security and keep Americans safe. We should also create and implement a national competitiveness plan that supports infrastructure investment and works with states to provide a first-class public education system. The federal government also has a responsibility not to leave debts and deficits to our children and grandchildren. There should be a safety net for our most vulnerable citizens, and the federal government must provide the framework to ensure the long-term viability of our Social Security system.
How do you assess (1) the Bush administration's response to 9/11 and (2) the specific situations in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Gilmore: As former chairman of the "Gilmore Commission" on Terrorism and Homeland Security, I approve of the Bush administration's aggressive pursuit of terrorists overseas. At home, I applaud the security advancements, but would add a call for total citizen involvement in a national plan for homeland security.
I applaud the Iraq surge and hope it will achieve the goal of creating a stable Iraq as our military involvement is diminished. I have visited Afghanistan and believe we must execute a more strategic plan to achieve stability without the re-establishment of control by the Taliban.
Warner: In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 President Bush rallied the nation to take on the threat of terrorism. But he also missed a key opportunity - the chance to use that moment of crisis to bring Americans together around a plan to get us off foreign oil.
In Iraq, our troops have performed heroically, and now is the time for the Iraqi government to step up and start spending its $79 billion in oil profits on its own reconstruction so we can begin to bring our troops home. We should shift our focus to the continuing terrorist threat in Afghanistan and commit to finishing the job against al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.
Do you support or oppose the Supreme Court's ruling in the Boumediene case granting habeas rights to alleged enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay? Explain. Should the Camp Delta detention facility at Guantanamo Bay be closed? If so, what should be done with the remaining detainees? If not, would you support the establishment of a special national-security court to review the cases of the detainees, or are military commissions sufficient?
Gilmore: I support the Boumediene case. I believe the court's goal was to ensure the survival of the vehicle of habeas corpus to ensure liberty in all instances, even those beyond the issue of Guantanamo Bay. Nevertheless, I oppose turning every prisoner of war or enemy combatant into a criminal defendant with full legal rights. I do agree that some process must be available for independent review to make sure arbitrary authority does not result in mistakes or a miscarriage of justice.
I believe the Camp Delta detention facility should be closed, as the security no longer outweighs the loss of American moral authority in the world. The remaining detainees should be held in the custody of the U.S. military. I believe that military commissions can be sufficient so long as the fundamentals of a fair chance to contest incarceration are maintained. A reasonable right of appeal should also be provided.
Warner: I believe that we should close the facility at Guantanamo. Guantanamo does not represent the principles that the United States stands for, and the best way to make this clear is to close the facility. Regarding Boumediene v. Bush, I believe the Supreme Court's decision sent a clear signal that the United States stands behind the rule of law. I have some concerns, however, that the ruling could be interpreted as setting precedent for extra-territorial application of the U.S. Constitution.
Last, as for the detainees at Guantanamo, many of whom have been held without legal counsel for more than six years, they should be provided a process and an opportunity to present their defense. I am confident that we can work with other countries to find suitable placements for detainees who are not found guilty by a court and that we can convict and continue to detain those who are guilty of crimes against the United States. We must continue to use all legal tools at our disposal to pursue terrorists. In this way we can keep our country safe while protecting the basic principles of our democracy.
The U.S. fought in Korea, Vietnam, the Balkans, and in Kuwait, and is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan without formal declarations of war. Do resolutions authorizing the use of force meet constitutional provisions investing Congress with authority to declare war?
Gilmore: In confrontations between nations the constitutional power of the Congress to declare war should be adhered to. The unfortunate departure from this practice in the 20th century has been due to emergency circumstances. The War Powers Act was drafted to limit executive power and maintain the authority of the Congress. The rise of international organizations, criminal and otherwise, will likely require the use of organized military force and the doctrine of war declaration will continue to evolve. Wherever possible, the Congress' declaration of war powers must be maintained.
Warner: In cases of emergency or when America is under attack, the president has the authority as commander-in-chief to defend the nation. But when an imminent threat becomes a long-term conflict, the War Powers Act says that Congress needs to sign off. We should not have open-ended commitments without declarations of war.
Can the U.S. effectively promote peace in the Middle East?
Gilmore: Yes. The United States must promote peace to prevent a general war that would likely draw in the United States, and to protect Israel. We must use all American resources - diplomatic, military, and economic - in our Middle East policy. For this reason, it is imperative that we seek energy independence and economic recovery.
Warner: Yes, and we need to start by continuing to work with Israel, our strongest ally in the region. We need to bring full diplomatic pressure to continue to push for peace in the region.
In 10 years will China be perceived as friend or foe?
Gilmore: In China today there are two independent elements. One group consists of those who wish advancement and are willing to apply capitalist principles and international economic cooperation. The second group is more aggressive and military and definitely perceives the U.S. as its enemy. We must promote the group that seeks peaceful economic advancement and resist with all our power the nationalist military elements in China who would seek to do harm to the U.S. and its allies. The success or failure of this policy will determine how China is perceived 10 years from now.
Warner: With the right policies in place, in 10 years China should be a great market for American goods and services. Right now China holds way too much of our debt. Instead of allowing China to be our banker, we need to make China our best customer.
Do disputes such as the one between Russia and Georgia threaten America's interests? What do you think of the U.N.? Should NATO expand?
Gilmore: America's interests are threatened by aggressive Russian foreign policy as the Cold War so clearly demonstrated. Russia must be discouraged from any effort to re-establish its Eastern European empire. We must make very clear that threats to the Baltic states or Poland will not be tolerated by the United States or its allies.
The United Nations is today a forum for anti-American propaganda and on the whole not helpful. I would aspire to utilize the United Nations as a forum for the vigorous presentation of American policy. I would seek to utilize the U.N.'s international prestige to promote American national interests and to make our case for American policy.
NATO should expand. However, we must develop a consensus with our allies over which countries we would agree to defend to the point of war with Russia.
Warner: Russia was emboldened to invade Georgia because of Russia's staggering oil and gas profits - yet another reason why we need to get off foreign oil. I think that the U.N. can be an effective body but the United States must retain its ability to act on its own behalf. I would support an expansion of NATO if it were done in a careful and thoughtful way.
What are your thoughts regarding U.S. relations with Latin America, and with Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela in particular?
Gilmore: Latin America is the next crisis point in international relations. I believe the United States can still get ahead of this crisis if we act vigorously to build our friendships with Latin American countries on the basis of mutual respect. I have visited South America as governor and have a deep understanding of the sophistication of Latin American societies and the opportunity for mutual advancement.
With respect to the specific countries, we must engage Mexico more deeply to solve the problems of illegal border-crossing and illegal immigration. Colombia is a good friend and ally and must be supported in its anti-drug and anti-terrorists efforts. Venezuela presently seeks to define itself as an enemy of the United States and must be contained. Efforts to find common ground with the people of Venezuela cannot be allowed to endanger the safety of the American citizens.
Warner: Venezuela, financed by our purchases of its oil, poses a threat to stability in Latin America. I believe we need to continue to partner with Colombia to eradicate its drug trade. A healthy and stable Mexico is in our interest, not only as a trading partner but also to ensure that fewer people from Mexico try to enter our country illegally.
Summarize the provisions of the perfect bill to address the problem of illegal immigration.
Gilmore: Congress needs to secure our borders. Additionally, Congress must insist our immigration laws be enforced. Illegal immigration is costing Virginia taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year and Congress needs to mandate the enforcement of our immigration laws.
We are a nation of immigrants. Immigrants from all over the world have been extremely important to the development and the success of our nation , so we should continue to respect them and be willing to consider legislative reforms that address our workforce needs.
Warner: We need a comprehensive immigration policy, one that is tough on border security, is effective, and is fair to taxpayers.
First, we need to secure our borders. By increasing our border security, we can prevent more undocumented people from entering the country illegally.
We must also enforce our existing immigration laws. The federal government should hold accountable any business owner who knowingly hires undocumented workers. Undocumented workers should be required to pay back taxes, pay a fine, and learn English.
Finally, for those in the country illegally, blanket amnesty isn't an option. Anyone who has broken the law should be immediately deported. This issue must be resolved at the federal level and should not penalize those individuals who have followed the law and are legal.
What is your attitude toward global trade?
Gilmore: We need to level the playing field in our trade policy. A pro-growth tax policy is essential to keeping good jobs here at home. We have the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world, which makes us a less appealing place to do business.
In addition to making our country a more appealing place to do business by lowering our corporate tax rate, we must ensure our trade policies focus on American workers and businesses, while still allowing us to compete in the demanding global economy.
Warner: There needs to be a level playing field where countries play by the same rules on environmental, labor, and currency manipulation issues. But I think America can compete and win in the global economy and that will include increased trade. That's one of the reasons why we need a national competitiveness strategy.
What is your policy on energy? What should a national energy policy include?
Gilmore: Whether to drill for oil right here in the U.S. is the key issue in this Senate campaign. We need to drill both offshore in the outer continental shelf and in ANWR in Alaska, and we need to do it now! Increased domestic drilling will help reduce gas prices. It's a matter of national security and should not be left up to the states. As Virginia's U.S. senator, I will push for immediate action and support fast-track legislation to permit oil production in Alaska, in our oil shale areas, and off our coasts - so we can increase supply and reduce gas prices.
We also need to encourage private industry to continue its development of alternative fuels, alternative energy sources, and clean coal technology, which is of particular importance to Virginia. And, we need to streamline the burdensome regulatory process so that we can build more oil refineries, more nuclear power plants, and clean coal facilities.
Warner: To address prices, we should lift the offshore moratorium and allow more domestic offshore oil and gas drilling, invest in alternative energy technology, and crack down on oil speculators. We should make the energy research and development tax credit permanent so we can create millions of new jobs here in America. If we do this right, American workers will build hybrid vehicles that get up to 100 miles per gallon within 24 months.
In the long-term, we need a comprehensive energy plan that reduces our dependence on Middle Eastern oil by investing in nuclear, cleaner coal, wind, solar, alternative fuels, and domestic oil and gas to power our country. If we do this, we can both lower the price of gas and make our nation more secure.
What do you think of the federal tax code? Is it effective, is it fair? Are rates too high, too low, or just about right?
Gilmore: As governor of Virginia, I cut the car tax and $1.5 billion in taxes for working families. I helped lead the national fight to block the Internet tax and for the repeal of federal communications taxes. And as Virginia's U.S. senator, I will work to reduce wasteful spending and allow for working Americans to take home more of what they earn by making the federal tax cuts permanent.
We must hold the line on taxes. Raising taxes in a troubled economy would be a disaster for working Virginians who are already struggling. Furthermore, I believe the Alternative Minimum Tax must be indexed for inflation. Because it has not been, increasing numbers of middle-income families have become subject to this so-called "tax on the wealthy." The rates in the current tax code are too high and prevent individuals from obtaining financial independence.
Warner: The federal tax code needs to be simplified. I support a progressive tax system and we need a re-examination of all of the tax exemptions to make our tax code fairer.
The next president likely will nominate at least one justice of the Supreme Court, and certainly will nominate scores of judges to federal lower courts. What is the judicial philosophy you would like to see in the nominees?
Gilmore: I will support judges who will not legislate from the bench, who understand the law is made by legislatures and Congress. Justices should seek to preserve liberty as intended by the founders with reference to the legal and historical precedence. The judges should not use the law to define the lives of American citizens.
Warner: I will support the most qualified and competent legal minds nominated by the president. I would want men and women who believe that the Constitution is a living document, and that the rights enshrined in it - including the right to privacy - are what make our country great.
Do you support or oppose parental notification for minors seeking abortion? What's your position on federal funding of stem-cell research? Does embryonic stem-cell research hold more promise than research involving adult stem cells?
Gilmore: As governor of Virginia, I stood for the sanctity of life, pushing through legislation that created a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions, required parental notification for minors, and banned partial birth abortion. As a U.S. senator, I will continue to work to preserve Virginia values, including the protection of human life - and that includes opposing federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research.
Warner: I support Roe vs. Wade. But I think folks with differing views on the issue of abortion can all agree that we ought to do everything we can to reduce unintended pregnancies. I signed a bill when I was governor to require parental notification with a judicial bypass. As the father of three daughters, I am very comfortable with this law. I support stem-cell research, and we should let science dictate the most promising techniques and research.
Name three federal programs you would like to start, and three you would like to shut down.
Gilmore: With regard to three federal programs I would work to eliminate, I do not believe the No Child Left Behind Act is working and I believe we need to return those responsibilities and the money that is currently being used to fund it to the states. I would also work to eliminate transportation enhancement projects that fund critter underpasses and lighthouses rather than the construction of roads. And third, I oppose the federal bailout program which gives taxpayer money to Wall Street firms that behaved irresponsibly, in return for transferring lousy business deals to the balance sheet of the taxpayers.
I do not propose any new programs, but would design a national policy to provide for more drilling for oil in the United States and energy independence.
Warner: We need to start a national reinvestment program for infrastructure that eliminates earmarks and creates a real strategic plan to expand broadband deployment, improve rail, and cut down on time wasted in traffic. To renew the public's trust we need to shut down or eliminate congressional earmarks in transportation funding.
We need a comprehensive energy plan that reduces our dependence on Middle Eastern oil by investing in nuclear, cleaner coal, wind, solar, alternative fuels, and domestic oil and gas to power our country. In terms of tax breaks, we need an energy program that gives the same opportunities for alternative energy that are currently given to oil companies.
We should also make the energy research and development tax credit permanent so we can create millions of new jobs here in America. If we do this right, American workers will build hybrid vehicles that get up to 100 miles per gallon within 24 months.
Finally, we need more accountability in our budgeting. I have a record of cutting spending as governor. And, as Chairman of the National Governor's Association, I created a plan to slow the growth of the Medicaid entitlement programs that 46 governors agreed to support.
We should create new rules that bring transparency and accountability to the budget process. Every federal program should be examined and continued only if there is a way to measure its success. We should eliminate all federal programs that have outlived their use.
What grade would you award the No Child Left Behind Act? What is the federal role in public education?
Gilmore: While I was governor, the General Assembly voted for my efforts to hire 4,000 new teachers so we could get our education resources into the classroom where they could make a difference for our children. Today, as a result of that effort the pupil-teacher ratio in Virginia is the third best in the nation. I also worked to implement the Standards of Learning, mandated that state lottery proceeds be used for education and helped Virginia's college students by cutting the cost of college tuition by 20 percent.
As I stated in the previous question, I do not believe the No Child Left Behind Act is working and I believe we need to return those responsibilities and the money that is currently being used to fund it to the states.
Warner: The idea behind No Child Left Behind - to bring more accountability to our schools - is a good one, though the act has been poorly implemented and is way too bureaucratic. It also penalized states such as Virginia, which have already adopted their own aggressive accountability standards. I would give it an 'A' for concept and a 'D' for implementation. The federal role in public education should be to provide the right incentives for underperforming schools and to work with states and localities to make sure we have an educated and competitive workforce.
Did authorities take appropriate action regarding Bear Stearns? Regarding Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? Should the government bail out Detroit? Does commercial aviation require a governmental fix?
Gilmore: This election is about regular Virginians who are struggling day to day to make ends meet.
I am extremely concerned the taxpayers are being asked to bail out investment companies, banks, and real estate firms that allowed their executives to make risky lending decisions. I believe we need to restrict these kinds of taxpayer bailouts. It is not appropriate for the taxpayers to be put in a position where their tax dollars are used to bail out companies who made bad business decisions!
Obviously we need more oversight, but we must be careful not to allow so much regulation that Washington intrusion disrupts the free market. One example of a free market solution that should have been considered would require troubled companies to issue a bond to draw money from the U.S. Treasury, which they would then repay with a low interest rate. It is wrong to ask America's hard-working families to cover the bets of the Wall Street high rollers and insiders who exploited flaws in government regulations to make personal fortunes and devastate our economy.
Requiring America's working families to cough up $700 billion without providing them any additional assurances for their own financial security is wrong. Many Washington politicians find it easy to take more and more of your money, but I do not. It is time we restore accountability in Washington - and on Wall Street - so America's taxpayers are protected and our economy prospers.
Warner: The worst thing about this crisis is that it could have been avoided if folks weren't asleep at the switch in Washington and on Wall Street. As someone who spent more than 20 years building businesses in the private sector, I think we need more leaders in Washington who understand finance and can read a balance sheet.
In the short term, Washington needs to act to prevent further financial meltdown. I plan to withhold final judgment on any specific package until the full details are available. Any plan must protect the interests of the taxpayers, prohibit excessive executive compensation packages for CEOs who ran their companies into the ground, provide for independent oversight while Treasury implements the bailout, and help stabilize the home real estate market.
For Detroit, rather than bailouts, I'd like to see incentives in place such as making the energy research and development tax credit permanent so we can create millions of new jobs here in America. If we do this right, American workers will build hybrid vehicles that get up to 100 miles per gallon within 24 months. On aviation, I have major concerns about the safety of our air traffic control system and the way passengers are treated.
Do you accept global warming? Does human behavior play a role? What are your approaches?
Gilmore: We know the climate is changing, but we do not know for sure how much is caused by man and how much is part of a natural cycle change. I do believe we must work toward reducing emissions without damaging our fragile economy.
Warner: Yes, global warming is real and human behavior does play a role. We need to address this through a comprehensive energy plan that reduces our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and invests in nuclear, cleaner coal, wind, solar, and alternative fuels and includes a carbon cap - something that both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama support.
What are your views on affirmative action as it relates to both race and class?
Gilmore: I do not support quotas, but all during my career I have worked to create opportunities for minorities and other disadvantaged citizens. As attorney general, I joined with my fellow attorney general across the south - Democrats and Republicans - and held a national conference on church burnings in America. A strong statement was made against such crimes. Gov. Doug Wilder was invited to keynote the conference and the church burnings stopped. As governor, I provided extra support to Virginia State University and Norfolk State University to ensure those universities were expanded to the highest quality. Also, as governor, I provided for a separate Martin Luther King holiday and invited Coretta Scott King to the governor's mansion.
Warner: I'd like to see an America where there's not a need for affirmative action, but for now, we need to make sure there is a level playing field for everyone to participate.
I come from the business world, and I think most business people will tell you that they want to recruit employees who were educated in an environment where they were exposed to diverse people and ideas. As I have said many times in the past, I continue to be opposed to the use of quotas.
Which president in your lifetime is your favorite?
Gilmore: Ronald Reagan. Because he provided sunny optimism to the nation, and won the Cold War without firing a shot.
Warner: John F. Kennedy
You and your opponent both served as governor. How would you rate your opponent's administration?
Gilmore: I am sure much constructive work was done during my opponent's administration. However, his principle initiative was raising taxes on the people of Virginia after promising not to do so. I cannot support an administration for which that was the principal goal.
Warner: I trust the voters of Virginia to decide which governor left Virginia in a better spot.
What do you most admire in your opponent?
Gilmore: I believe Gov. Warner is good husband and a good father. My son, Ashton, is acquainted through school with one of Gov. Warner's daughters, and he has always expressed that Gov. Warner's children are wonderful girls.
Warner:I respect Gov. Gilmore's service beginning in the late 1990s on homeland security issues.
Almost 50 years ago John Kennedy inspired a nation with his "Ask Not" speech. What is the rallying cry for a new era?
Gilmore: To enable citizens to prosper, and achieve independence and control over their own lives - to secure the nation from foreign threats - and to preserve the liberties of all Americans.
Warner: There is no challenge that this country faces that is also not an opportunity if we ask our people to step up - not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans. The issues we face are less about left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative or even Democrat vs. Republican - it's about the future vs. the past. We need to seize the opportunities of the future.
LOAD-DATE: October 23, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 19, 2008 Sunday
Metro Edition
SECTION: HORIZON EDITORIAL; Pg. 2
Don't worry about 'racism'; just get out there and vote
Debi Kelly Van Cleave ("Racism will mar many people's votes in November," Sept. 27 letter) and Carol Ross ("Racist attitudes do linger," Oct. 6 letter) condemn as "racist" those who will not vote for Barack Obama because he is black. This is indeed unfortunate, but then we are all imperfect.
In many of the primaries, Obama received more than 90 percent of the votes cast by blacks. I find this neither surprising nor disturbing. I feel certain there will be blacks voting for Obama who have never participated in a national election before, as there will be whites voting for Obama just to avoid being branded as "racist."
I expect this dynamic to be a deciding factor in the Nov. 4 election, but I'm not going to call it "racist." It's just normal for most of us to relate to people who are "like us," whether it be race, national origin, job skills, hobbies, etc.
But let's not get our shorts in a bunch over this. I'm sure it can be demonstrated that the best men for the country were not elected in many past elections, the most recent being 2004. It is important that we all vote, and just hope for the best.
Eugene M. Baird
Martinsville
Goode's tactics are shameful
If Rep. Virgil Goode's mother were here, she would send him to his room for his slanderous political ad about Tom Perriello.
Perriello was born and raised in the 5th District. He was an Eagle Scout, no less. He works in our community at Habitat for Humanity, food banks and other charities, and pledges to work overtime for the citizens.
Goode has shaded his picture to look like he is coming from Afghanistan to get us. Shame on him and his political campaign for sinking so low.
Millie Kantner
Moneta
We don't need another 'regular Joe'
Sarah Palin wants to prove she's one of us. She describes herself as "Joe Six-Pack Hockey Mom." The problem is that while she's working hard on identifying with us, she's not trying to find out what Americans are like and represent our opinions to the government.
Sure, she's friendly in an early-morning talk-show kind of way, but I don't want Al Roker protecting my interests against Vladimir Putin. I want a person who's smart, shrewd and cool under pressure. That's Barack Obama.
My ideal candidate does not have to be just like me to represent me. It's fine if he's black and a Harvard law graduate, as long as he presents my opinions and viewpoints on the world stage.
In the 2000 election, George W. Bush did a great job of taking on the persona of a "regular Joe." What was the result? We got what we voted for -- the "C student" who had trouble articulating a vision for the country -- and we had a hot mess on our hands.
Let's choose the guy who may not identify with us some of the time, but who best represents us all of the time. That's Obama.
Mary Brewer
Roanoke
The markets voted 'no confidence'
Wall Street has already cast its vote in the 2008 presidential election. The free market system absolutely responded to the predicted election of Barack Obama as spelling the death knell of the free market enterprise system.
Using free-market dollar votes, millions of individuals have cashed in their accumulated wealth before Obama and congressional minions can tax it away to finance their liberal social programs and destroy free market individual incentives.
By acting in their own best interest, these millions have virtually incinerated all the monetary gains accrued in the last 15 years, thereby denying Obama the financial resources for carrying out his promised agenda and its planned massive redistribution of wealth.
Ironically, hedge fund managers and other "short seller" market manipulators who have financed Obama's campaign are also the same individuals and firms whose actions have exacerbated the decline. This stock market crash is a massive, clear "no-confidence" vote on Obama's prospective economic program and absence of a proven track record of doing, leading or managing anything of consequence.
Only the McCain-Palin team offers adequate planned incentives to restore confidence in our free enterprise system, reverse the decline and get us back on a viable road.
Max Beyer
Roanoke
His means leave him homeless
I am a poor, homeless man. What most people don't know is that most homeless people today live in their cars and vans, not on the streets and not so visible.
With the recent economic downturn, more and more people are ending up like me. Even though I had good credit and could have continued to borrow to pay bills, my income and health wasn't good enough. I knew I couldn't borrow my way out of debt (like this country is trying to do today). I live within my means today, meager though they may be.
People have the attitude that all homeless people have something wrong with them, like alcoholism, drug addiction or mental illness. There's help available for these problems.
The reason people are homeless is because they don't have homes. Contrary to popular belief, homeownership is not the American dream. Profit is. Perhaps this depression will show us the error of our ways.
In my homeless experience, I have found true charity. Not the kind that expects a return or reward -- just honest, humble unconditionally generous people. They are here, giving without taking away your grace and human dignity. God love you.
John N. Smiley
Roanoke
Let the race card turn a losing hand
Wake up, Americans. Are you going to let the uneducated and racist voter keep us with the same Republican leaders who have put this wonderful country in the mess we have now? Do the right thing for our country. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
Gus Gerakaris
Wirtz
ITT helps others protect our lives
Obviously, Scott Cundiff has never had a family member serve in the military. If he had, or had ever done so himself, he would realize how important it is to be equipped with the latest technology ("Turn down help from ITT's war machine," Oct. 4 letter).
ITT does not create or condone war, it creates equipment to protect our soldiers, our country and our freedom. The night vision technology not only benefits soldiers at war, but is used to secure our borders, protecting your life and your family's lives, and by law enforcement officers and in the medical field.
Maybe we should quit investing in advances to support our military so we then can be taken over by another country. Maybe then Cundiff would appreciate what ITT and other companies contribute to our safety and independence.
Or maybe we should send him to a country that could not care less about his rights and freedoms, since he is in need of a wake-up call.
Thank God for companies like ITT whose workers take part in protecting my family and others -- they do more for their country in one day, I'm sure, than Cundiff has done his whole life.
Amanda Robinson
Buchanan
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 19, 2008 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
It's OK to be blue, military wives say
By Louis Hansen
The Virginian-Pilot
Norfolk
The blue "Obama-Biden" yard signs are hidden in the garage. The Obama bumper stickers are magnets, easy to remove when the husband drives the family SUV to the base. When politics comes up at barbecues and other work-related events, they measure their words.
But a few military wives have stepped out this year to back the Democratic candidate as members of Blue Star Families for Obama.
"There's a preconceived notion that if you're in the military, you watch Fox News and are Republican," said co-founder Amanda McBreen, who lives in Suffolk with her husband, a Marine lieutenant colonel, and their children. "I'm an issues person."
McBreen and two other local members, Vivian Greentree and Stephanie Himel-Nelson, are among about a dozen women driving the national campaign.
Military voters typically are a reliable base for Republicans. GOP candidate John McCain has even deeper ties as a naval aviator revered for his heroism as a prisoner of war.
An unscientific poll conducted by Military Times this month found its readers preferred McCain over Barack Obama by almost a 3-1 margin. McCain held solid leads in every category except black service members.
The voluntary survey drew on 4,290 current and former subscribers from all service branches, the National Guard and Reserves. Military Times noted that its readers are generally older, higher ranking and more likely to make a career of military service.
In Virginia, conservatives can point to a four-decade dominance in presidential elections.
Service members in Virginia favor McCain by almost a 2-1 margin, according to a poll conducted Oct. 1 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. The Republican ticket drew a large, pro-military crowd at a rally in Virginia Beach last week.
But in Hampton Roads, several dozen military family members have organized to target military voters through canvassing and phone banks. They produced an online commercial for the campaign, pitching Obama to the military community.
They host Democratic rallies and organize debate-watching parties and meet-the-candidate gatherings.
On Tuesday night, the American and Naval Academy flags flew at the door of Casey Spurr's home in Virginia Beach . Her yard was one of the few with Obama signs in the neighborhood.
Spurr, 29, joined the group about a month ago. It's a long way from her first political experience as secretary for the Young Republicans club at Bayside High School.
Spurr graduated from Virginia Tech, married a Navy fighter pilot and settled down in Virginia Beach. Last year, the couple had their first child. Both her husband and father-in-law are "very, very Republican," she said.
Spurr was motivated to support Obama after her husband received orders for a land-based mission in Iraq when she was seven months pregnant. The Navy is asking more service members to take on such untraditional assignments in combat zones to assist the Army and Marines, whose ranks have been strained by the war. The orders were postponed, but her husband is now overseas .
Spurr didn't hesitate to join the Obama campaign but said she is cautious when talking politics around other spouses.
The strain of the wars is overwhelming young military families, she said. She believes that if Obama wins, he'll redeploy troops and ease the heavy deployment schedules.
"It would have a huge impact," she said.
The Spurr living room is decorated with models of jet aircraft and a framed painting of a World War II fighter plane. About 15 people, most with military ties, shook hands with and listened to Glenn Nye, the Democratic candidate for the 2nd Congressional District.
They peppered him with questions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the GI Bill, and the stumbling economy.
Himel-Nelson, whose husband recently retired from the Naval Reserve, said liberal politics can strain friendships and stain careers.
"It's sort of like a secret society within the military," Himel-Nelson said. "You know, those Democrats with the secret handshake."
An attorney specializing in government contracting, she said political persuasion can affect government contracts. Her clients often are advised to "stay on the good side" of the contracting officer, she said.
Her husband has generally supported her efforts, she said, with a few compromises - she keeps the Obama yard signs in her garage.
When the women shot their commercial along the street, several neighbors turned down requests to film in front of their homes when they learned the cause, said Greentree, who also blogs for PilotOnline.com.
McBreen helped form Blue Star Families while at Parris Island, S.C. She and her husband had several long discussions before she joined.
Officers are directed to stay clear of politics for fear of influencing the votes of their troops, she said. But she felt that "as wives, we could make a statement."
They realize they have an uphill battle, starting at home. Most are not convinced they have turned their husbands from red to blue.
Louis Hansen, (757) 446-2322, louis.hansen@pilotonline.com Service members in Virginia favor Republican John McCain by almost a 2-1 margin, according to a poll conducted Oct. 1 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. The Republican ticket drew a large, pro-military crowd at a rally in Virginia Beach last week.
the group
Blue Star Families for Obama has organized to target military voters through canvassing and phone banks. They host Democratic rallies and organize debate-watching parties and meet-the-candidate gatherings. meet and greet
Casey Spurr, right, whose husband is a Navy fighter pilot, greets Democratic congressional candidate Glenn Nye at her home in Virginia Beach on Tuesday . Spurr joined Blue Star Families for Obama about a month ago. She describes her husband and father-in-law as "very, very Republican." Va. military voters
LOAD-DATE: October 19, 2008
GRAPHIC: Hyunsoo Leo Kim | The Virginian-Pilot Democratic congressional candidate Glenn Nye, center, speaks at Casey Spurr's home in Virginia Beach on Tuesday. Spurr, the wife of a Navy fighter pilot, is a supporter of Democrat Barack Obama in the largely Republican military community. Hyunsoo Leo Kim | The Virginian-Pilot
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 19, 2008 Sunday
Regional Edition
A Hale Chief? Better Check Up on That.
SECTION: OUTLOOK; Pg. B03
The American public seems pretty sure that it knows everything it needs to know about whether John McCain and Barack Obama are healthy enough to be president. I'm not. And whenever I think about whether both men are fit to serve, physically speaking, I think about the sinking feeling I had one lovely spring afternoon in 2002 when an archivist at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library wheeled out the cartload of files showing how badly we had all been deceived about JFK's health.
The secret details of Kennedy's medical history were buried in 10 beat-up old cartons of records the library had held for 40 years. Past requests for access to these materials had all been refused by a committee of loyalists that included one of JFK's closest advisers, speechwriter Ted Sorensen. To my surprise, the committee had given me the chance to read the files; I had to agree not to photocopy them but was free to take notes or read passages into a tape recorder. Now I -- along with a physician friend, Jeffrey Kelman -- felt as if I were breaching a wall of secrecy. Here were not the usual neat boxes of presidential records, preserved in red-blue-and-silver-trimmed containers, but musty cardboard cartons that seemed to have sat untouched in some corner of the library since Janet Travell, one of Kennedy's physicians, had given them to the library after JFK's assassination in November 1963.
Between May 1955 and October 1957, Kennedy had been hospitalized nine times for a total of 44 days, including one 19-day period and two week-long stretches. Despite his public image of "vigah," as his accent rendered it, he suffered from bouts of colitis, accompanied by abdominal pain, diarrhea and dehydration; agony in his back triggered by osteoporosis of the lumbar spine; prostatitis, marked by severe pain and urinary infections; and Addison's disease, a form of adrenal insufficiency. Some of his difficulties, such as his back pain and Addison's, were open secrets among the press corps during his 1960 run for the White House, but the extent and severity of his problems -- to say nothing of the promiscuous variety of medications and doctors he relied upon to maintain his health -- had remained undisclosed. That's largely because the Kennedy campaign made every effort to hide his health problems -- obviously convinced that these disclosures, combined with his youth and Catholicism, would sink him.
Kennedy was following in a little-known but troubling tradition in American politics -- and one we should remember when we assume that McCain and Obama have told us everything we need to know. Since that day at the Kennedy library, I have been advocating the full disclosure of all presidential candidates' medical histories, physical and psychological, in no small measure because the Kennedy campaign's deceptions were in line with the deceits or shadings offered by Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt during their own presidential bids.
Unbeknownst to the public, Wilson had suffered several small strokes before he ran in 1912 and continued to suffer them while in office; they proved to be preludes to a massive stroke in September 1919 that left him with a paralyzed left arm and leg and limited cognitive function. He could not stay alert for sustained periods of time or keep anything resembling a normal presidential work schedule. But the White House hid, as best it could, the extent of the president's incapacity from the public. Even though Wilson still had 18 months remaining in his term, which was being dominated by an economic recession and widespread fears of radicalism provoked by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the press, foolishly, deferred to the president's desire for privacy. White House subordinates declined to reveal the truth about the president's condition -- an amazing display of recklessness.
The public did not fully understand how badly Roosevelt's health was failing when he ran for a fourth term in 1944. He died the following April, during the waning months of World War II, of a cerebral hemorrhage brought on by arteriosclerosis. When Winston Churchill's physician saw FDR at Yalta in February 1945, the British doctor predicted that the president would be dead in a matter of months. After his death, shocked Americans wondered whether he should have run again in 1944 and whether he had performed as effectively as he might have at the Yalta conference with Stalin.
If Wilson, Roosevelt and Kennedy had fully disclosed their health problems, it might have cost them the Oval Office. Wilson would have been pressured to resign, something he considered doing in January 1920, and turn the presidency over to his vice president, former Indiana governor Thomas R. Marshall. Wilson's and his closest advisers' decision to keep the president's disability secret was an undemocratic abuse of presidential power.
If FDR and JFK had allowed the public to know about their own health problems in 1944 and 1960, respectively, they might well have lost. Then again, Roosevelt's hold over the electorate remained considerable, so he might have prevailed. And if JFK had leveled with the public about the pain he bore, he might have been seen as heroic for achieving so much despite his suffering.
But such calculations are beside the point, then and now. Politicians' political problems are their own. Their health problems belong to all of us, and if candidates don't like that, they need not run for president. It was and is the public's right to have the fullest possible information about a potential president's physical condition. If you want to be the most powerful person in the world, you will also have to be one of the least private. Voters deserve to know the full picture -- no ifs, ands or buts.
Those who squirm at this standard often point to the examples of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, both of whom suffered from depression, and argue that these titans might never have taken office if they had offered full disclosure of their emotional struggles. I do not take so dim a view of the electorate and believe that American and British voters would still have recognized their greatness. Democracy rests on informed decision-making, and I see no decent argument for secrecy -- especially if we may be passing the world's largest nuclear arsenal into ailing hands.
So on Oct. 3, when I read a full-page ad in the New York Times by 2,768 medical doctors calling on John McCain to release fully his health records to the public, I cheered. The voters' judgments should rest on the fullest possible information about the presidential candidates' potential performance in office. The fact that McCain could be our oldest elected president, a 72-year-old man with a history of skin cancer and a largely untested running mate, makes it all the more urgent that we know more about his health before voting. It's admirable that he shared 1,173 pages of his medical records with a small number of reporters during a three-hour period in May. But the limits the McCain campaign imposed on the review of those materials -- the eyebrow-raising time constraints, the exclusion of a New York Times reporter with an M.D. from the pool, the refusal to permit photocopying -- raise questions about what medical experts might find if given unrestricted access.
The requirement for full disclosure should apply to Barack Obama as well. His campaign has released only a single page of information about his health history. He is just 47 and seemingly in excellent health, but nobody is immune from illnesses that voters might want to take account of in November. And remember, we all thought JFK was the picture of youthful vigor, too.
Advances in modern medicine and in public understanding of diseases suggest that someone with a history of cancer or some other life-threatening illness need not be seen as barred from serving as president. But in an era when presidents shoulder such staggering responsibilities, voters in the United States -- and people around the world -- are entitled to know as much as possible about the person who will have so much to say about all our lives and futures.
rdallek@aol.com
Robert Dallek is the author of "An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963." His latest book is "Harry S. Truman."
LOAD-DATE: October 19, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Harold Valentine -- Associated Press; The picture of health: Back pain forced President Kennedy to use an Air Force lift to board his plane. Voters never knew the extent of his ailments.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
October 19, 2008 Sunday
Correction Appended
Regional Edition
Economic Downturn Sidelines Donors to '527' Groups
BYLINE: Matthew Mosk; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A09
The recent collapse on Wall Street appears to have found another victim: the independent political groups aiming to make an impact on the 2008 elections.
Expected to be a force in the final weeks of the presidential race, outside groups and the pointed advertising they brought to the airwaves in recent campaigns are barely evident this year. Political operatives say the fact that many wealthy potential donors have shied away from investing in efforts such as the infamous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is that they are simply too busy trying to salvage their own financial portfolios.
"After the [GOP] convention, things looked good," said Phil Musser, a Republican fundraising consultant. "Major donors interested in issue advocacy were tuned in, political juices were flowing, polling looked good, and then, blammo! Most donors lost 20 or 30 percent of their net worth in eight days. With few exceptions, that pretty well shut down the money discussion for a lot of folks."
Four years ago, groups operating outside the party structure invested more than $130 million in television commercials, often carrying the kind of negative messages that the candidates themselves wished to avoid. This year, total spending by such groups is at about $17 million so far, with no single organization playing a dominant role, according to Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group.
Their decline was underway before turmoil swept through the markets. Both Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) openly discouraged their supporters from backing such groups early on in the campaign. They considered the efforts, often waged by entities known as 527s because of their tax designation, as running counter to the reformist images both candidates were attempting to burnish.
Several major players from past years announced that they would not participate this time around. Most notable among them was T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oilman who helped back the Swift Boat Veterans ads targeting Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) four years ago.
The legal climate has also changed. After the 2004 campaign, the Federal Election Commission issued an unprecedented $2.6 million in fines against seven 527 groups. This year, lawyers advising the donors to those groups warned that the FEC fines could be a precursor to action by the Justice Department.
But fundraising consultants say the economic collapse ultimately slammed the door. One of the groups expected to emerge as a major player, the conservative Freedom's Watch, hinted that it could spend as much as $200 million on congressional races around the country.
Freedom's Watch launched with a splash, announcing an advisory board that included figures such as billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and former Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. A year ago, the group launched the first round of what it said would become a steadily escalating barrage of ads with a $15 million campaign supporting President Bush's Iraq war strategy.
"We're forming a never-ending campaign," Bradley Blakeman, a former White House aide who was among the founders, said at the time. "We're taking on generational issues that are not decided at the ballot box."
An early infusion of donations fueled $30 million in expenditures, including ads seeking to influence several congressional special elections. But as November approached, several of the moguls who had been supporting the group became distracted by their own financial distress.
Perhaps most notable among them was Adelson. As his company, Las Vegas Sands, struggled through steep September declines, Adelson saw $4 billion of his personal fortune evaporate as a result of the slumping national economy, and that was before the slow-motion stock market crash. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that between Aug. 29 and Oct. 1, Adelson suffered the steepest drop among those who lost $1 billion or more during the credit crisis.
A spokesman for Adelson, Ron Reese, said "Mr. Adelson does not comment on his political activity."
Another Freedom's Watch patron, New York financier Paul Singer, also stepped back his involvement. His firm, Elliott Associates, had minor exposure to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, leading to speculation among some Republican fundraisers that the economic crisis was to blame. Singer helped raise more than $1 million for Republicans in the current election cycle and was viewed as an important potential resource among those trying to find support for independent groups.
A spokesman for Singer declined to comment on his political activity this year but noted that his hedge fund as of Sept. 30 was up 6 percent for the year.
One Freedom's Watch adviser familiar with appeals to Singer said efforts to enlist his eleventh-hour support have gone unanswered. "Understandably," said the adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because discussions with donors are confidential. "The guy's got a business to worry about."
Senior staff members at Freedom's Watch said they consider their efforts in several key House and Senate races to be a significant first step. "We have put out $30 million in expenditures, and that's nothing to sneeze at," said Ed Patru, the group's spokesman. "After Election Day, we'll measure our success based on the impact we've had on the issues that are important to us."
The slowdown in giving appears to have had a disproportionate impact on Republicans. Obama holds an enormous money advantage in the closing weeks of the campaign. His ads have been bolstered by mail and phone-bank efforts largely financed by labor unions. The AFL-CIO alone has directed more than $50 million to persuade its members to support Obama and other Democrats.
Another major source of support for Democrats has come from MoveOn.org, which in the past had raised its money almost entirely from wealthy donors. In this cycle, the group shifted its approach, using its enormous e-mail list to raise "hard money" -- direct donations that are within legal limits and reported to the FEC. "Despite the much ballyhooed chill on 527s, there are a lot of groups with hard-money capacity," said Tom Matzzie, a Democratic operative who previously served as Washington director for MoveOn. "There's less hard money on the right."
The outside group that has spent the most on ads this cycle is the American Issues Project, the creation of another Swift Boat Veterans patron, Texas billionaire Harry Simmons. When the group surfaced, it announced $2.6 million in ads, including the first television spot linking Obama to the controversial Vietnam-War-era radical William Ayers. But the effort has tailed off in recent days.
"I don't get the impression that these guys have a ton of money," said Tracey, the media analyst. "I think it's just an unwillingness for people to plunk down big checks right now. I don't know if that money's going to show up in the next two weeks or if it's pretty much over at this point."
LOAD-DATE: October 19, 2008
CORRECTION-DATE: October 24, 2008
CORRECTION: · An Oct. 19 A-section article incorrectly described the amount of financing MoveOn.org has received from wealthy donors in past years. Wealthy donors accounted for a modest portion of MoveOn.org's budget.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 18, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Who's playing the race card? ... Who's playing the race card?
BYLINE: CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
LET ME get this straight. A couple of agitated yahoos in a rally of thousands yell something offensive and incendiary, and John McCain and Sarah Palin are not just guilty by association -- with total strangers -- but worse: guilty according to The New York Times of "race-baiting and xenophobia."
But should you bring up Barack Obama's associations -- 20 years with Jeremiah Wright, working on two foundations and distributing money with William Ayers and the long-standing relationship with the left-wing vote-fraud specialist ACORN -- you have crossed the line into illegitimate guilt by association. Moreover, it is tinged with racism.
The fact that, when McCain actually heard one of those nasty things said about Obama, he incurred the boos of his own crowd by insisting that Obama is "a decent person that you do not have to be scared The search for McCain's racial offenses is often unhinged. Remember McCain's Berlin/celebrity ad that showed a shot of Paris Hilton? An appalling attempt to exploit white hostility at the idea of black men "becoming sexually involved with white women," fulminated New York Times columnist Bob Herbert.
On Tuesday night, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and Jonathan Alter of Newsweek fell over themselves agreeing that the "political salience" of the Republican attack on ACORN is, yes, its unstated appeal to racial prejudice. This about an organization that is being accused of voter registration fraud in about a dozen states. In Nevada, the investigating secretary of state is a Democrat. Is he playing the race card too?
What makes the charges against McCain especially revolting is that he has been scrupulous in eschewing the race card. He has gone far beyond what is right and necessary, refusing even to make an issue of Obama's deep, self-declared connection with the race-baiting Wright.
In the name of racial rectitude, McCain has denied himself the use of that perfectly legitimate issue. It is simply Orwellian for him to be now so widely vilified as a stoker of racism. What makes it doubly Orwellian is that these charges are being made on behalf of the one presidential candidate who has repeatedly, and indeed quite brilliantly, deployed the race card.
How brilliantly? The reason Bill Clinton is sulking in his tent is because he feels that Obama surrogates succeeded in painting him as a racist. Clinton has many sins, but from his student days to his post-presidency, his commitment and sincerity in advancing the cause of African Americans have been undeniable. If the man Toni Morrison called the first black president can be turned into a closet racist, then anyone can.
Just weeks ago, in Springfield, Mo., and elsewhere, Obama warned darkly that George Bush and McCain were going to try to frighten Americans by saying that, among other scary things, Obama has "a funny name" and "doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills."
McCain has never said that, nor anything like that. When asked at the time to produce one instance of McCain deploying race, the Obama campaign could not. Yet here was Obama firing a pre-emptive charge of racism against a man who had not indulged in it.
What makes this all the more dismaying is that it comes from Barack Obama, who has consistently presented himself as a healer, a man of a new generation above and beyond race, the man who would turn the page on the guilt-tripping grievance politics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
I once believed him.
CORRECTION: Last week I wrote that in 1995 Bill Ayers gave Obama a fundraiser in his home. I should instead have called it a campaign event.
Charles Krauthammer's column is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group. E-mail him at letters@charleskrauthammer.com
LOAD-DATE: October 18, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
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The Washington Post
October 18, 2008 Saturday
Suburban Edition
Questions Linger About McCain's Prognosis After Skin Cancer
BYLINE: David Brown; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
In May, the presidential campaign of 72-year-old cancer survivor John McCain tried to put to rest doubts about his health by allowing a few reporters to inspect his medical records, but the effort has failed to quell questions about his odds of surviving an eight-year tenure in the White House.
One loosely organized group of physicians has been claiming in Web-based videos, op-ed columns and newspaper ads that McCain's risk of dying from a recurrence of the skin cancer he had treated eight years ago may be as high as 60 percent.
However, data on cancer survival rates compiled by the federal government suggest that people in McCain's situation have no more than a 10 percent chance of dying from melanoma over the next decade.
The key to the favorable prognosis is that McCain has already survived eight years without a recurrence. Even if the cancer was more serious in 2000 than his doctors judged, the fact that he is alive today suggests it had not spread by the time it was removed on Aug. 19, 2000, at the Mayo Clinic's campus in Scottsdale, Ariz.
The McCain campaign has rejected releasing additional records. A campaign spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, said in an e-mail that letting reporters look at 1,173 pages of medical documents "was an unprecedented level of disclosure. . . . It was certainly more significant than the one-page doctor's note [Democratic candidate Barack] Obama released!"
The gist of the critique is that McCain's cancer was more advanced than his physicians concluded and that the chance of recurrence is consequently higher. Melanoma that spreads widely through the body -- "metastasizes," in medical parlance -- is rapidly fatal.
The effort to learn more about McCain's health gained steam after he chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. More than 2,700 physicians signed a full-page ad in the New York Times on Oct. 3 calling for a "full, public release" of the candidate's medical records. Others urged that microscopic slides of tissue removed before and during his operation be made available for review by independent pathologists.
"Voters need to know who is most likely to be running the country in 2010 if Senator McCain is elected in 2008," Wendy Epstein, a New York dermatologist and Obama supporter, wrote in an eight-page analysis of the senator's risk circulating on the Internet.
She and some other critics believe the odds of McCain surviving 10 years after his surgery is 36 to 56 percent. The senator's physicians, while eschewing precise predictions, have said that his risk of developing metastatic melanoma is in the "single digits."
Data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Institutes of Health support the more optimistic view. The SEER database is drawn from representative areas that together contain about one-quarter of the population. It is considered the most authoritative compendium of American cancer patients' survival rates.
At the request of The Washington Post, biostatisticians at the National Cancer Institute, where SEER is housed, "interrogated" the database with McCain's demographic variables. None of the data are linked to patients' names.
The melanoma patients in SEER are categorized by whether the disease was "localized," "regional" or "distant" at the time it was found. This staging system is simpler than the one currently used by dermatologists, who divide patients into Stages I to IV, and then into many subcategories.
McCain's physicians concluded after some debate that he was Stage IIa, which would put him in SEER's localized category. Epstein and many of the doctors calling for the release of his records say McCain was Stage IIIb, which falls into SEER's regional group.
The SEER data show that a white male whose cancer was diagnosed in his early 60s and who is now an eight-year survivor of melanoma has a 2 percent risk of dying of the disease in the next five years if the original tumor was localized, and a 4 percent risk if it was regional.
The first estimate was based on the experiences of 1,481 people and has an error range of plus or minus 0.4 percent. The second was drawn from only 83 people and has more uncertainty -- 2.6 percent.
If one looks out 10 years from now, a person with McCain's experience has a 4 percent probability of dying if the tumor was localized and 10 percent if it was regional. The error ranges of those estimates are 0.7 and 5.1 percent, respectively.
Someone with McCain's variables can, of course, die of other causes. According to SEER, such a person has an 85 percent overall chance of surviving five years and a 66 percent chance of living 10 years, regardless of whether the cancer was localized or regional.
In their analysis, many of the critiquing doctors point to a comment made by two pathologists at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington who were asked by the Mayo Clinic to look at microscopic slides from McCain's biopsy.
Those doctors said the tissue's appearance "is highly suggestive of a metastasis of malignant melanoma and may represent a satellite metastasis."
A satellite metastasis is an island of cancer that has spread from a nearby tumor. In terms of risk, it is equivalent to finding cancer in the nearby lymph nodes, which makes the disease regional and no longer localized.
The Mayo Clinic doctors concluded that McCain did not have satellite metastases. However, to be safe, they did a much more extensive operation than is usual for purely localized disease, removing more than 30 lymph nodes from McCain's face. No cancer was found in any of them.
Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 18, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
October 18, 2008 Saturday
Suburban Edition
Bush Defends Rescue Plan;
Government Cash Infusion Was a 'Last Resort,' He Says
BYLINE: Dan Eggen; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: FOREIGN; Pg. A08
President Bush yesterday mounted a vigorous defense of his efforts to cope with the global financial meltdown, saying that the move to purchase stock in major U.S. banks was a "last resort" to shore up collapsing credit markets.
Bush, whose administration has come under growing criticism for its uneven response to the crisis, also urged Americans to be patient and allow time for the government's market interventions to take hold.
"The federal government has responded to this crisis with systematic and aggressive measures to protect the financial security of the American people," Bush said in a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. He added later: "It took a while for the credit system to freeze up; it will take a while for the credit system to thaw."
The 20-minute speech marked Bush's lengthiest and most detailed public comments on the crisis since Sept. 24, when he delivered a prime-time address urging passage of a $700 billion federal bailout plan that is now being implemented. Bush and his senior aides have faced criticism from lawmakers and financial experts over their handling of the crisis, particularly the decision to buy stakes in nine major banks after the administration said it had no intention of doing so.
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and other key economic aides have taken the lead in organizing the administration's response to the crisis, with Bush keeping a relatively low profile. The White House said yesterday's speech was aimed in part at explaining the government's actions to the wider public.
Appearing forceful and at times defensive, Bush said the roots of the crisis go back "more than a decade," effectively laying part of the blame for the crisis on his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton. Bush also stressed that the move to invest taxpayer money in banks is temporary and will not lead to a lasting government investment in private markets.
"I know many Americans have reservations about the government's approach," Bush said. "As a strong believer in free markets, I would oppose such measures under ordinary circumstances. But these are not ordinary circumstances. We took this measure as a last resort."
Much of the address appeared aimed at fiscal conservatives, who have bristled at a series of rescues and other steps that amount to the most extensive government intervention in the markets since the Great Depression.
Bush said he was forced to make such moves because "the hole in our financial system would have grown larger" if he did not. He also noted that the U.S. government has a history of limited interventions in the financial system, most recently during the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s.
"In every case, the government relinquished its ownership stakes after the crisis ended," Bush said. "And we will do so again. The government intervention is not a government takeover."
Bush also said the country should "never lose sight of the enormous benefits delivered by the free-enterprise system," calling it "the greatest system ever devised." World leaders such as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez have characterized the crisis as reflecting the limitations of U.S.-style capitalism.
The economic crisis has broadened at a time when Bush's popularity has plunged to the lowest levels of his presidency. Bush has also come under increasingly sharp attacks from presidential candidates Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who declared this week that he was "not George Bush."
Bush's public statements on the economy have had little apparent impact on financial markets. His remarks yesterday came before U.S. markets opened but after an announcement that the pace of new home construction dropped in September to its lowest level since 1991.
"It's background noise, really," said Ed Yardeni, an investment strategist. "It's cheerleading, and the only thing that is going to cheer people up is if these rescue plans start to work. Cheerleading doesn't work here anymore."
Joseph Brusuelas, chief U.S. economist at Merk Investments, called Bush's speech "a robust defense of democratic capitalism" that should have been delivered a year ago. But he said that only statements from Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and other top economic officials carry weight right now.
"It is unfortunate it doesn't matter," Brusuelas said. "He gave a good speech. It is too bad the public and the market weren't paying attention."
Staff writer Renae Merle contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 18, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Ken Cedeno -- Bloomberg News; Addressing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, President Bush characterized the intervention as a desperate act.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
October 18, 2008 Saturday
Campaigns agree on homeland security
BYLINE: By Ben Conery, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: PAGE ONE; '08 ISSUES; A01
The homeland-security plans of presidential candidates Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama contain significant common ground: Both favor the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission and directing federal homeland-security money to where it is most needed, for example - and both voted to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act.
There are differences, though one expert described them as mostly matters of focus on areas within the sprawling issue, which includes counterterrorism, infrastructure protection and responding to natural disasters.
Despite its scope, the issue of homeland security has not played a major role in this campaign, a stark contrast to the 2004 presidential election when the issue helped propel President Bush back to the White House. This year, the economic crisis, health care and other issues have taken precedence.
"The fact that we don't have this as a major issue is because there's more or less a consensus," said David Silverberg, editor of Homeland Security Today magazine. "Both of them acknowledge that there's a threat, that's the important thing."
Phil Leggiere, the online managing editor for Homeland Security Today, was struck by the lack of detail in each candidates' homeland-security planks. He said the information on their Web sites is mostly rhetorical.
"Broadly, on all the main issues, there's not a lot of substantive differences," he said.
Their Senate records show some of the differences in emphasis are tied to their geographic origins.
Mr. McCain, Arizona Republican, highlights on his campaign Web site that he co-sponsored the Border Security First Act of 2007, which provided $3 billion for, among other things, the construction of a 700-mile border fence.
The campaign Web site of Mr. Obama, Illinois Democrat, highlights his sponsorship with Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, of a bill to improve security at chemical plants. Both New Jersey and Illinois have a concentration of such facilities.
Both White House hopefuls have expressed support for better information sharing between federal and local authorities, but Mr. Leggiere said they differ on intelligence sharing with foreign governments.
He said Mr. Obama believes in coordination among international law enforcement agencies, particularly in areas that don't necessarily belong to a particular country, such as securing cyberspace, telecommunication grids and financial distribution networks.
"For Obama, it's a focal point," Mr. Leggiere said. "For McCain, they're skeptical about the efficiency of that approach to begin with, and it's certainly not a linchpin of their other policy."
Similarly, both candidates want to improve cargo screening at ports. But they have different ideas about how best to accomplish the upgrade.
Mr. Obama supports mandated screening of all cargo into the U.S. On the other hand, Mr. Leggiere said, Mr. McCain supports a more risk-based approach to targeting specific cargo with the help of new equipment, particularly of the commercial, off-the-shelf, instead of proprietary, technology.
But perhaps the most important homeland-security issue facing the next president will be choosing an effective homeland-security secretary who can improve the operation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and improve the morale of the department's employees, which is considered by some to be among the lowest among federal employees.
"DHS has to be a functional department. Tearing it apart or disassembling it - that is not going to make things better," said Mr. Silverberg. "The next president and his homeland security secretary have to make that a smoothly functioning, coefficient and really exemplary federal agency.
"And that is a gigantic job," Mr. Silverberg added.
LOAD-DATE: October 19, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 17, 2008 Friday
Final Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. A-12
This election offers a stark choice between philosophies and world views, at least according to the candidates and the peanut gallery. Barack Obama and John McCain profoundly disagree on issues such as economics, or so we hear.
Indeed, the contenders have released competing programs - "plans," to be precise - and are running commercials that emphasize their differences. The message boils down to, "My opponent is a nice guy whom I like very much but whose ideas will destroy the economy and ruin the middle class, which, of course, is the backbone of America, God shed His grace on thee."
This year the nation has confronted economic turmoil. The Dow collapsed. Capital markets froze. Venerable institutions disappeared. The federal government intervened.
A few weeks ago Congress voted on the so-called bailout - perhaps the most dramatic economic legislation since the 1930s. When the clerk called the roll, both Obama and McCain - those nominees with fundamental differences - voted yes.
Many citizens will find that comforting, others will not be so sure.
LOAD-DATE: October 21, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
BYLINE: Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
Oct. 17--This election offers a stark choice between philosophies and world views, at least according to the candidates and the peanut gallery. Barack Obama and John McCain profoundly disagree on issues such as economics, or so we hear.
Indeed, the contenders have released competing programs -- "plans," to be precise -- and are running commercials that emphasize their differences. The message boils down to, "My opponent is a nice guy whom I like very much but whose ideas will destroy the economy and ruin the middle class, which, of course, is the backbone of America, God shed His grace on thee."
This year the nation has confronted economic turmoil. The Dow collapsed. Capital markets froze. Venerable institutions disappeared. The federal government intervened.
A few weeks ago Congress voted on the so-called bailout -- perhaps the most dramatic economic legislation since the 1930s. When the clerk called the roll, both Obama and McCain -- those nominees with fundamental differences -- voted yes.
Many citizens will find that comforting, others will not be so sure.
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081017-RV-EDITORIAL-The-Same-1017
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 17, 2008 Friday
Metro Edition
SECTION: THE BOTETOURT VIEW; Pg. BV3
CHICKEN FUNDRAISER A BIG HIT
A group of volunteers from the student body, coaches, parents and community helpers came to the Lord Botetourt BBQ shack on Oct. 11 to prepare a chicken fund raiser for James River athletic programs. On Friday, students in the school's work and family studies classes at James River washed and wrapped baking potatoes. Local businesses helped provide the chicken and fixin's at a reasonable cost.
The day began around 7:30 a.m. and ended about 7:30 p.m. The chicken barbecue was a sell-out; 800 chicken dinners left or were eaten on premises, at the VFW Hall, where the chicken was brought after it finished cooking at the LBHS pit. A steady stream of diners and carryout flowed in and out of the parking lot in the three-hour span. By all accounts, the event was a great success.
--Cathy Benson, The Botetourt View
VFW PICNIC SHELTER DEDICATED
Members of the VFW, the Bolton family, Boy Scouts and community members came out to dedicate the Percy Bolton picnic pavilion at the VFW Hall Post 1841 on the Roanoke Road.
Percy Bolton loved to help veterans. He passed away a year ago this past June, but his memory has been honored by a picnic pavilion dedicated in his memory on Oct. 12. He was a VA hospital veteran for 39 years and he was post commander for 19 years. He also perfected the sauce and chicken barbecuing technique at the Lord Botetourt High School BBQ, shed cooking thousands of chickens over the years.
With Bolton's family in attendance, the VFW led a ceremony that lasted about 45 minutes to honor his memory and included a sermonette by Rev. Carl Collins, a 94-year-old chaplain and veteran who also officiated over the dedication ceremony.
The eight tables under the pavilion were made with donations from area businesses. Boy Scout Troop 333, sponsored by the post, provided two Eagle Scouts, Michael Dant and Michael McCormack, and Eagle Scout candidate David Bordette, who along with community support and troop leaders built the picnic shelter.
-- Cathy Benson
P'dazzled for Pink
The 2nd Annual P'dazzled for Pink Photo Shoot benefiting the Greater Roanoke Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation will take place Thursday, Oct. 23.
The event will run form noon to 8 p.m. at d'Artisti Photography Studio located at 1530 Valley Road in Daleville. No appointments are necessary, but they are highly recommended.
Door prizes and gift bags will be given throughout the day. There also will be a raffle for a "Chick's Day Out" which includes lunch for four at the White Oak Tavern, limo transportation and and a spa experience at Divinity Lifestyle Spa Salon.
Please call Marie Powell at 589-2728 for more information.
SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT RELEASES SKETCH OF SUSPECT
This is an artist's sketch, based on witness descriptions, of a man who was part of a duo that broke into an occupied home on Martin's Lane in Fincastle on Sept. 26. If you have information about the crime or recognize him, please call the Botetourt County Sheriff's Department at 473- 8230.
SCHOOL BOARD OPTS AGAINST SELLING SITE TO LAP
Last month, accompanied by shelter animals, the League of Animal Protection asked the Botetourt County school board to sell the building it occupies and a small parcel of land to the group for $85,000. The nonprofit group had raised the funds for the purchase. The school board studied the matter and made the decision not to sell.
The LAP has been located in the old Botetourt County animal pound since the 1990s. The building and kennels sit on the acreage beside Central Academy middle school and is owned by the Botetourt County school division.
The reason for the offer came out in the September meeting. The LAP wanted to make shelter improvements to the building including adding a new bathroom.
The Botetourt County School Board decided against selling the building and a slice of land to the LAP during closed session on Thursday, Oct. 9. When the Botetourt View spoke with Chairman Ruth Wallace, she said after talks with Sammy Oakey, a board member of the LA,P and shelter director Pat Shaver, that they felt it would be much easier to give LAP a perpetual lease that will automatically renew every 10 years.
Shaver was circumspect over the decision."The school division has been good to us and we are very thankful. Our lease will continue to renew every 10 years for as long as we need it. We will go ahead and begin the renovations to the building."
LBHS BOOSTERS TO RAISE FUNDS FOR CONSTRUCTION
A baseball/softball committee plans to raise at least $124,000 to put up an enclosed batting cage and pitching metal building on the west side of the Lord Botetourt High School campus behind the baseball field. It took some convincing for the school board to approve the measure on Thursday Oct. 9. With the addition of a central office administrator to the building committee and assurances that at least $75,000 of the needed money is in the bank prior to a shovel of dirt being turned, the building was approved.
Economy woes and the size of the building were apparent concerns when the school board questioned LBHS assistant principal Tim Bane and booster club members about the project. The building will not need water and heat because the concession stand has water and bathroom facilities, but the school board will get the responsibility of another electric bill and upkeep upon completion. The metal building is 4,400 square feet and will hold batting cages and pitching runs.
BOTETOURT COUNTY SCHOOLS FULLY ACCREDITED
Botetourt County schools are now fully accredited, school superintendent Tony Brads announced Oct. 9. He said the Virginia Department of Education Accepted the appeal of Central Academy's scores that had caused them not to pass the AYP in Science. Now all county schools have achieved the Annual Yearly Progress ( No Child Left Behind) benchmark.
-Cathy Benson
GRAFFITI VANDALS STRIKE FINCASTLE TOWN HALL
The graffiti bandits struck another public building in Fincastle Oct. 8 - this time vandalizing the Fincastle Town Hall building. Earth-related topics were the focus this time and the art work is done in green, black and white paint.
Last week Mayor Scott Critzer and council member Alan Brenner expressed dismay over the library graffiti committed the previous week. Fincastle Town Council meets in the Town Hall.
If you have any information about this crime, please contact the Botetourt County Sheriff's Department at 473-8230.
-Cathy Benson
Presidential pumpkins
Some kids are more creative than others in coming up with government extra credit projects at Lord Botetourt. Assistant principal Mike Ketron was impressed by the creativity of two seniors, Brittany Hambrick and Meghan Sealey, who carved jack o'lanterns that look like John McCain and Barack Obama. He saw to it that the pumpkins and their creators were photographed for the Botetourt View's Autumn Snapshot Contest. (For details, see the ad in this week's issue or go online to The Notebook on botetourtview.com.) The pair carved the pumpkins for extra credit in U.S. Government class.
The two girls got the patterns from the Internet. Here are the pumpkins lit up for the election!
YOVASO CLUB AT LBHS RAISES FUNDS, COMPETES IN STATE CHALLENGE
A number of the 35 members of the the YOVASO (Youth of VA Speak Out About Traffic Safety) Club at Lord Botetourt High School came out Oct. 11 to wash cars as a fundraiser to enable the group to get door prizes for activities.
The past few weeks have been busy competing in the "Save Your Tailgate Challenge". The campaign is a competition between participating Virginia schools to increase safety belt educational and awareness activities at the high school level and to increase overall seat belt use among teenagers.
The goal is to help students form a lifelong buckle-up habit through education and awareness. A few examples of activities that the students have been doing include seatbelt checks, banners and signs around the school, school announcements, seatbelt and traffic statistics information handed out at school and at the homecoming football game, car bash, car wash, chalkboard messages and much more. The club hopes to have all students and staff sign the buckle up petition to show their support for seat-belt usage.
-Cathy Benson
CARTER, AUSTIN RECEIVE REGIONAL AWARDS OF MERIT
Larry Carter and Steve Austin were honored at the Oct. 9 school board meeting for being selected to Regional VHSL Awards of Merit.
Carter, the retired Athletic Director at Lord Botetourt High School, won the Region II 2008 Regional Award of Merit for his athletic knowledge and assistance to not only his district, but also to others in the region. Carter was a popular teacher at the school as well.
Austin is a 1972 graduate of James River High School and he has spent over 30 years in volunteer service to the athletic programs there, he keeps statistics for the football team and as the PA announcer for gym sports has been a real asset to the school, said Sheila Proffit, athletic director. He won the Region C Regional Award of Merit. On behalf of the school board, Wallace presented certificates of recognition to the two honorees.
- Cathy Benson
LOAD-DATE: October 24, 2008
GRAPHIC: photo - 1. Genealogy Fair - Catherine Crowder Teaford sold her book on The Crowder Family at the Genealogy Fair on Oct. 11. --Cathy Benson, The Botetourt View 2. Barbecue for sale - Cub Scout Troop 137 sold barbecue last Saturday at Ikenberry's. Front: Candace Davis, James Davis, Eric Reynolds, Austin Sparks, Melissa Lucas, Crystal Jones, Tracy Davis. Back: Jim Davis, Dana Reynolds, Todd Mason, John Jones. 3. Volunteers cooked 800 chicken halves at the LBHS BBQ shed to raise funds for James River High School athletic programs. The tall fellow in the center is basketball coach Mike Goad. -- Cathy Benson, The Botetourt View 4. Graffiti artists sprayed the back of the Fincastle town hall building. -- Courtesy of Rena Worthen 5. Members of Lord Botetourt's YOVASO washed cars to earn money for their Buckle Up project. --Cathy Benson, The Botetourt View 6. Eagle Scout candidate David Bordett and Eagle Scouts Michael Dant and Michael McCormack were instrumental in constructing the Percy Bolton Picnic Pavilion. -- Cathy Benson, The Botetourt View 7. Larry Carter (photo on left) and Steve Austin receive certificates from school board chair Ruth Wallace. -- Cathy Benson, The Botetourt View 8. Here are the pumpkins lit up for the election 9. sketch of suspect
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 17, 2008 Friday
Metro Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B8
All the problems we have today stem from Congress
We can solve our energy crisis immediately and cheaply by harnessing all the self-congratulatory hot air that will be coming out of Washington in the next few months.
The gusher of declarations of how Congress saved our bacon should sustain us for years. Their proclamations and assertions of bipartisan best and patriotic duty will warm the coldest foreclosed home.
Unfortunately, they are right. But they were doing their best to save their collective places at the trough.
This was not about Main Street. It was solely about political survival. The roots of every problem we have today can be traced to Congress, whether it's the economy, health care, Iraq, education or immigration. Either its cowardly inaction and deregulation, or its short-sighted restrictions and control have been the cause of the present situation.
We need more than cosmetic changes in Congress, more than simply voting out the old and inserting new pegs in the same old holes. We need a restructuring of how Congress operates. New rules.
Abolish the old system of seniority. Each committee chairman should be from the minority party. Or have a shared chairmanship. But in the end, we got what we deserved.
David Goode
Bedford
Democrats caused the financial meltdown
In my 77-plus years, I have never witnessed so few politicians detrimentally affecting so many citizens. The politicians and media would have us believe that the monetary crisis is all Wall Street's fault. However, the record is clear on how the Democratic Congress not only gave birth to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but nurtured their existence and was instrumental in their insolvency.
For their part, Democrats Maxine Waters of California, Gregory Meeks of New York, Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, by supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, played a major role in the present monetary meltdown and should be held accountable, if not by Congress, at least by their constituents.
As an independent voter voting for the candidate rather than the party, I cannot, in all honesty, vote Democratic this time around.
Marcel Legare
Rural Retreat
Listen to Truman: Vote Democratic
There they go again. Republican John McCain and his running mate are trying to divert the attention of the public from the abysmal condition of the economy by mounting vicious attacks against Barack Obama.
Anyone who listens to Obama's plans can see that he means to cut taxes for 95 percent of the population and to use a sensible, measured approach to the problems facing our country.
In his frenzy to divert the attention of the people from the condition of the United States, McCain lurches from one ill-considered idea to another. His real philosophy, which he shares with President Bush and the Republican Party, shines through in spite of him.
Once the Republicans fool enough of the people in order to get their votes and squeeze into office, they set about destroying the safety nets put in place by FDR and other Democrats.
Wake up, people! Harry Truman said, "How many times do you have to be hit over the head before you figure out who's hitting you?" Vote Democratic on Nov. 4.
Betty B. Hosp
Roanoke
The people snoozed, their economy loses
The U.S. economy is in a financial quagmire created mostly by two mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. While this $700 billion debt is yet expanding, our political leaders are hunkered down in the "valley of indecision" seeking only recrimination rather than solution.
It is ironic how brave our congressional leadership can be giving away billions to the so-called poor, yet when impoverished borrowers by the tens of thousands would default on their loans, that generous bravado is now AWOL taking credit for the mortgage crisis.
Debt Mountain has caved in on a naïve, sleeping public, in a deep sleep closely akin to that of the present inept Congress. From the individual household to the Oval Office, this financial meltdown is about us, the snoozers.
We citizens have allowed the politicians to play God and do our bidding as to who is more deserving to receive a home loan. Seldom mentioned by lenders to the borrower was an age-old, unwritten doctrine, "You must show proof your earnings are sufficient to repay the loan."
Worse yet, many bankers were required by law to make loans to people who were for the most part penniless.
Bob Jones
Pulaski
McCain is proven by time, sacrifice
At this crucial time in American history, we have two candidates: one hardened, forged, by American tradition, sacrifice and maturity. John McCain could have returned to an easy life after unspeakable torture in a lost, humiliating war. Inspired by Ronald Reagan, he has chosen lifelong commitment to this nation.
America knows the character of John McCain.
McCain stands for the highest office in the world opposed by an inexperienced man, untested by life, with neither accomplished record nor personal sacrifice, surrounded by emotional adulation. There are facts and associations to alarm.
Would Americans have a far-left liberal upon inauguration teamed with the known Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, or the newly image-crafted centrist? Who is the real Barack Obama away from managed artifice? Does even Obama know?
Who is McCain? Americans and world leaders, friend and foe, do know. Unlike Obama, he has not morphed in the campaign. Not since Dwight Eisenhower have voters had the choice of an American servant who knows who he is, why he serves and what is required to lead forward the United States of America.
Carolyn Muddiman Patterson
Roanoke
Questions she'd like to ask Obama
After the lame, repetitious questions of the Oct. 7 debate, I have a few of my own.
Sen. Obama, why are you friends with people who hate America, the country you wish to govern? Do you support the plans of unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, your early supporter, to radicalize our children's education? Do you agree with your pastor of 20 years and spiritual mentor that America deserved what happened on 9/11?
You've repeatedly called your wife one of your closest advisers. Do you sympathize with her characterization of America as a "downright mean country" when so many of our soldiers have died for the freedoms of others around the world?
Sen. Obama, when you are through instituting your "changes" to the greatest nation in history, limiting gun rights and redistributing wealth and appointing liberal, activist radicals to the Supreme Court, will it be at all distinguishable from European-style socialism? Will I recognize this country that I love after four years in your hands?
Lauren Gillespie
Roanoke
Don't move DMV into pricey new digs
Our governor and the Virginia General Assembly have really run off the road with this issue. Why do we need to spend so much money for a new DMV office in Roanoke? The rent on the current office is $150,000 a year. The rent for the proposed new office will run $416,562 a year.
Are we not paying attention to Wall Street here at home in Virginia? Let's tell the DMV and the General Assembly we don't need more violations of taxpayers' hard-earned money. Let this be one of the first steps on the road of correcting our Virginia budget shortcomings.
Clarence R. Martin
Roanoke
Too many cats, too many mice . . .
I think I may have come up with a permanent solution to the latest crisis in Roanoke, but since I live in Radford, I guess no one thought to call me. It really might solve two problems.
Have the city manager's staff (read: city council) round up all the feral cats in town, have them fixed (as we say here) and turn them loose in the City Market Building. No more mice, and the cats have a place to hang out. As they say in the Visa ad: priceless.
Lynn A. Davis
Radford
LOAD-DATE: October 18, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 17, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Anti-growth tax plan
During the second presidential debate, the two candidates were asked about the effect of raising taxes on those whose earnings are above $250,000 and specifically small businesses.
Sen. Obama answered that only a handful would be adversely affected by his plan. This answer was far off the mark. Many small businesses are either limited liability corporations, S corporations or partnerships.
All of these are taxed on their pro rata share of the company earnings in addition to their salaries, which often are modest. All of these companies depend on these profits for working capital, debt service and expansion so they can continue to grow, opening more locations and hiring more people.
These are not rich people, although they are striving to succeed and to enjoy the fruits of our precious free enterprising system. His planned tax increase will surely serve to decrease the incentive for many young entrepreneurs as they purchase franchises with dreams of expansion, possibly a husband and wife hoping to open their second or third small restaurant, or even a small hardware store seeking another location.Such a plan will be a significant deterrent to growth.
R. Dawson Taylor
Virginia Beach
Democrat for McCain
I am a Democrat, and until now, have always been active in Democratic politics. I campaigned for and contributed generously to Mark Warner for governor and Jim Webb for the U.S. Senate, and I will vote for Mark Warner again this November. However, I am not voting for Barack Obama. Instead, I am actively campaigning for John McCain.
I am supporting Sen. McCain for two reasons. First, I have worked hard in building my own company, took significant risk and now employ more than 150 people.
Obama, a senator with a limited resume and someone who has never run a business, has decided that we should redistribute wealth away from people like me.Our economy cannot afford Obama as president. With Obama's certain tax hike, young entrepreneurs will do the math and decide the risk is greater than the reward. We can all say goodbye to future small business ventures.
Secondly, McCain is an independent thinker who has always and will always put our country ahead of himself and his political party. We know this because as a POW, John McCain refused early release from prison in North Vietnam to stay with his fellow soldiers. There is no better example of an American putting country first.
McCain reaches across the aisle to craft legislation that is best for all Americans, even when it wasn't politically expedient, or the popular thing to do.
Jerry Flowers
Virginia Beach
Accepting Sam
On March 5, 1999, in Virginia Beach, a boy was born to a white mother and an unknown black father. She gave him up, and we, who are white, adopted him. He has been ours since he was three days old. We have been blessed to have him as our son. He is absolutely beautiful, has a loving and compassionate spirit, and his smiles would rival the most brilliant sunrise. His name is Sam. So why is Barack Obama's run for the White House so important to us? In one word: Sam.
Richard and Sherry Allen
Virginia Beach
Unhealthy plan
John McCain's plan to tax employer-provided medical insurance will destroy one of the few functional elements of the health care system. Teachers, law enforcement officers, firefighters and military personnel are poorly compensated. One of the few benefits provided them tends to be good health care.
McCain wants to raise taxes on these already burdened and poorly compensated personnel, without whom we as a society would suffer. On top of this, McCain would slash Medicare and Medicaid.
It is bewildering that such plans could even be proposed, and it demonstrates that McCain is out of touch with the needs of normal American citizens.
Robert Guess
Virginia Beach
Fueling economic boom
Re "Environmental issues are focus of forum," news, Oct. 8:
Barack Obama's and John McCain's plans for fighting global warming are not "pretty much the same." Obama's global-warming plan embraces future energy sources and the associated economic opportunities and "green collar" jobs. Obama has consistently voted for higher renewable-energy standards to ensure that 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025.
Obama will invest $150 billion over 10 years -- creating 5 million new jobs -- in developing and manufacturing new energy technologies. As president, Obama will partner with U.S. automakers to fast-track the development of high-mileage and advanced vehicles to ensure the cars of the future are built in America, not overseas.
In contrast, McCain voted against increasing fuel economy standards that would have saved Americans 2 billion gallons of gasoline costing $7 billion. He opposed tax rebates for purchasers of plug-in hybrid and fully electric vehicles, while proposing to give $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies. Finally, McCain has repeatedly voted against investing in and encouraging alternative and renewable energy sources like clean biofuels, solar power and wind power.
Mark Van Putten
Cape Charles
Drake should buy an ad
Re "Drake criticizes ad saying she voted against vets' benefits," Hampton Roads, Oct. 2: So Rep. Thelma Drake claims that she is being unfairly treated in campaign ads by her opponent concerning her voting record. She is not unique in claiming unfairness. But when The Pilot publicizes her complaint as if it were news, doesn't that amount to political favoritism?
Her campaign should be required to explain her positions in paid advertising the same as any other candidate. Perhaps she could include an explanation as to why she supported the failed policies of the Bush administration about 95 percent of the time, even voting against Sen. Jim Webb's bill to expand GI Bill benefits for veterans of the Iraq war.
Buck Rogers
Virginia Beach
LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 17, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Barack Obama has a 6-percentage-point advantage over John McCain among Virginia voters in the race for the presidency, according to a poll released Thursday.
The poll, conducted by the Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, showed Obama, the Democratic nominee, preferred by 49 percent of likely voters, compared to 43 percent for Republican nominee McCain. Just under eight percent of the 500 voters surveyed said they remain undecided. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The poll also indicated that the slumping national economy is foremost in voters' minds as the election nears. Sixty-one percent said the economy and jobs are the top issues the nominees should address. Health care was the next-most-worrisome problem, with just under 9 percent rating it the top issue.
The results are in line with other recent Virginia polls, which generally show Obama with a 5- to 10-point advantage in the state. The last Democrat to carry Virginia for president was Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
gun rights
webb helps obama
As U.S. Sen. Jim Webb stumped southwestern Virginia for the Obama-Biden ticket on Thursday, Democrats looked to Webb's reputation as a lifelong hunter and shooting enthusiast to reassure rural voters that Obama supports their right to bear arms.
"Our family tradition of hunting and shooting are a way of life to me," Webb says in a 30-second radio ad that began airing on rural stations earlier this week. "I know that my friend Barack Obama will protect our Second Amendment rights, so don't be misled in the closing days of this campaign."
The National Rifle Association, the nation's leading pro-gun group, has denounced Obama as an opponent of gun rights. In Congress and before that as a state senator in Illinois, Obama "has supported bans on handguns and semi-automatic firearms, and he has voted to ban possession of many shotguns and rifles commonly used by hunters and sportsmen across America," NRA lobbyist Chris Cox said last month.
Obama and Biden have made several visits to rural Virginia this fall, hoping to make inroads in usually Republican territory. Webb made a string of stops for the ticket along the Interstate 81 corridor on Thursday and is scheduled to appear with Obama at a Roanoke rally today .
absentee voting
deADLINEs nEaRing
If you can't make it to the polls on Nov. 4, you can vote by absentee ballot. In Virginia, the deadline to request an absentee ballot by mail is Oct. 28; the deadline to vote in person at your registrar's office is Nov. 1.
Call the registrar in your city for an absentee ballot application (all numbers are in the 757 area code): Chesapeake, 277-9797; Norfolk, 664-4353; Portsmouth, 393-8644; Suffolk, 514-7751, 514-7750 or 514-7754; Virginia Beach, 385-8683.
- Dale Eisman and John Warren
LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: Barack Obama, left, was preferred over John McCain by likely voters, 49% to 43%, with 8% still undecided.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 17, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
From wire reports
WASHINGTON
"The real winner" of Wednesday night's debate, John McCain said Thursday at a campaign stop in Downingtown, Pa., "was Joe the Plumber."
That might depend on the definition of "winner."
Joe the Plumber, a. k. a. Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, is suddenly (sort of) a household name, featured in a McCain ad, sought after by network news anchors and newspaper reporters. McCain would like to meet him in person this weekend, but Wurzelbacher's got a date on the Mike Huckabee Show and might not have the time.
On the other hand:
The emergence of Joe has allowed the state of Ohio to locate the man it says owes nearly $1,200 in back taxes. His motives for confronting Sen. Barack Obama at a campaign stop in his neighborhood earlier this week are the subject of intense Internet speculation. The city of Toledo is preparing a letter to his employer seeking to determine if he is violating city codes, and the plumber's union is on his tail.
"Joe the Plumber really isn't a plumber," said Thomas Joseph, business manager of UA Local 50 of the Plumbers, Steamfitters and Service Mechanics Union, whose national membership has endorsed Obama.
Wurzelbacher, 34, had taken tentative steps onto the national stage after talking to Obama on Sunday as the Democrat toured his suburban neighborhood outside Toledo. Wurzelbacher told Obama that he wants to buy the plumbing company he works for, and that his potential income of more than $250,000 would make him eligible for increased taxes under Obama's proposals.
"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" Wurzelbacher asked.
Obama's answer to that and a question about the flat tax - that Obama thought it better to "spread the wealth around" - captured the attention of conservative media and the McCain campaign.
Joe the Plumber quickly became a metaphor for the middle class. Between them, McCain and Obama mentioned him more than two dozen times.
The result was an avalanche of attention - CBS anchor Katie Couric on the phone, "Good Morning America" awaiting an interview, reporters in the driveway of his modest home - which the well-spoken Wurzelbacher handled with aplomb and a bit of amazement.
"I'm completely flabbergasted with this whole thing," he said, noting his concern that he was mentioned more often than Iraq.
The morning showed that the spotlight can be unwelcome. Reporters quickly found that Wurzelbacher owes the state of Ohio $1,182 in back taxes, leading sharp-tongued liberal commentators to say he was not so much concerned about rising taxes as paying taxes at all.
A spokeswoman for the state said it was possible he might not have known about the lien.
Wurzelbacher acknowledged to reporters that he does not have a plumber's license, but said he did not need one to do residential work with the two-man Newell Heating and Plumbing Co., which does have a license.
David Golis, a manager in the city of Toledo's office of building inspections, said that is incorrect.
"We were just discussing that we will send a letter to the owner of Newell reminding him" of the city's requirement that all who do plumbing work be licensed or in apprentice or journeyman programs, Golis said.
Union manager Joseph said that Wurzelbacher applied for an apprentice program in 2003, but never completed the work.
Wurzelbacher admitted to reporters that the goal of buying the business was more aspirational than firm. He said his income was "not even close" to the levels at which Obama's tax increases would kick in.
Wurzelbacher indicated Thursday that he was a fan of the military and McCain - but wouldn't say who will get his vote.
He is registered as a Republican, the county elections board said, because he voted in the GOP primary in March.
This story was compiled from reports by The Washington Post and The Associated Press.
LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: Ohioan Joe Wurzelbacher was thrust into the public eye during the presidential debate Wednesday.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 17, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
obama ad would push back start time of game 6
The Associated Press
NEW YORK
Major League Baseball has agreed to push back the start of a potential World Series Game 6 by eight minutes to allow Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to purchase a half-hour of air time on the Fox network.
Baseball spokesman Pat Courtney said Thursday the game time would now be set for 8:35 p.m.
Obama's campaign said Oct. 9 it had bought 8- 8:30 p.m slots on CBS and NBC.
"Fox will accommodate Senator Obama's desire to communicate with voters in this long-form format. ... If requested, the network would be willing to make similar time available to Senator McCain's campaign," network spokesman Lou D'Ermilio said in a statement.
The Series has not gone to a sixth game since 2003, when the Florida Marlins won.
LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
October 17, 2008 Friday
Met 2 Edition
Last Debate Is Not a Winner, In the Ratings
Nearly 60 million viewers watched the third and final -- and most contentious -- debate between presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.
Which, yes, means the faceoff you most wanted to see this election year was the one between vice presidential candidates Joseph Biden and Sarah Palin. It clocked more than 73 million viewers, and was the second-most-watched debate in U.S. history, presidential or vice presidential.
Wednesday's final debate, from Hofstra University, did not amass the 66 million viewers who watched the second debate. But that town-hall-style event was held just a week after the highly anticipated and much-watched veep faceoff and in the early electrifying days of the Wall Street meltdown.
The least-watched Republican vs. Democrat debate of this election was the first, which logged 55 million viewers.
Wednesday's debate, in which the two candidates for the first time sat spitting distance from each other, might have drawn a bigger crowd had it not run up against Fox's broadcast of a championship-deciding Game 5 between Los Angeles and Philadelphia -- those teams' cities being the country's second- and fourth-largest TV markets.
Though CBS News's Bob Schieffer moderated, CBS's coverage attracted the fewest viewers among the major broadcasters, 9.2 million. ABC logged 10.6 million; NBC led with 11.3 million.
Fox News Channel enjoyed its biggest debate crowd of this cycle, 9.1 million viewers. Another 8.9 million went with CNN and 3.7 million chose MSNBC.
The overall tally also includes Univision, CNBC, BBC America, MUN2, Telemundo and PBS. PBS estimates are not included in Nielsen's stats, but the public television network provides its own audience estimate.
* * *
Major League Baseball has agreed to postpone the first pitch of Game 6 of the World Series (should the game be needed) by about 15 minutes to enable Fox to join CBS and NBC in running Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama 's 30-minute message to voters Oct. 29.
That leaves only ABC among the major broadcast networks still undecided as to whether it will let Obama's campaign buy the 8 p.m. half-hour slot on its prime-time schedule.
"Fox will accommodate Senator Obama's desire to communicate with voters in this long-form format," the network said in a statement. "If requested, the network would be willing to make similar time available to Senator McCain's campaign."
Fox is contractually obligated to carry the game if this year's World Series comes to that.
Obama's campaign is ponying up just shy of $1 million each to NBC and CBS for the half-hour buy. The camp likely would pay a similar amount to Fox. That's considerably less than NBC and CBS would otherwise get for the 10 or 11 ad "units" they run during that half-hour. But Obama is not getting a price break; the campaign will be charged what's called the "lowest unit cost" in compliance with federal law.
ABC and Obama's camp are still in talks about whether the network will make available the time slot, which would enable the candidate to create a so-called "roadblock" on the broadcast networks.
With those networks these days accounting for only about half the audience watching TV at any given time, it's a less dramatic programming stunt than it would have been a decade or so ago, but pretty dramatic nonetheless.
ABC has scheduled an episode of its struggling dramedy series "Pushing Daisies" at 8 that night. The show is one of last year's freshman series hurt by the writers' strike; ABC is trying to relaunch it this fall, but so far without much luck. ABC execs may believe there is opportunity for "Daisies" to get more sampling if the network does not join in the Obama buy, particularly now that Game 6 would not start until 8:35 p.m. -- more than halfway through the "Daisies" broadcast.
* * *
John McCain, so pugnacious in his encounters with his Democratic rival, folded like a tent when confronted last night by late-night host David Letterman, whom McCain stood up last month.
"I screwed up," McCain said of his last-minute decision to cancel his appearance on CBS's "Late Show" last month, forcing Letterman to scramble to find a replacement guest.
Letterman, who's been laying into McCain every night since then, started in immediately last night when the candidate walked onstage at the Ed Sullivan Theater.
"Can you stay?" he asked, dripping cynicism.
"Depends on how bad it gets," McCain answered.
The candidate admitted he "screwed up" but bravely tried to suggest he'd done Letterman a favor by backing out of his previous date.
"Look at all the conversations I gave you . . . including having Mr. Olbermann on."
(MSNBC on-air talent Keith Olbermann, who had filled in after McCain told Letterman he had to rush back to Washington to save the melting-down economy, though he in fact went to be interviewed by Katie Couric, was shown standing in readiness backstage at yesterday's taping should McCain bail a second time.)
"I haven't had so much fun since my last interrogation," said McCain, a Vietnam War POW.
With regard to the current economic situation, which McCain stood up Letterman to return to Washington to fix, the candidate said Americans are "the victims of a drive-by shooting by Washington and Wall Street."
Really?
"Now's not the time to raise anybody's taxes -- except yours, and I guarantee when I'm president I'll do it," McCain told Letterman.
After that, the interview got a lot more heated:
Letterman pressed McCain for details about his debate remark that he knows how to get Osama bin Laden.
"In 19 days. I'll be elected . . . look --" McCain tried to joke.
"Bin Laden. Let's just start there," Letterman persisted.
"First of all, obviously, you don't want to say exactly, but the point --"
"But you have a plan," Letterman said.
"I know what we need to do, okay?" McCain responded. ". . . I think I know, because of my many years being involved in these issues, how to develop a plan. One of the areas, of course, is human intelligence, which we're very badly lacking. And I am confident that we can get him."
McCain also said Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was "absolutely" his "first choice" for vice president, while adding, "I didn't know her well at all -- I knew her by reputation."
But is Palin "the woman to lead us through the next 9/11 attack," Letterman wondered.
"Absolutely," McCain said. "She has inspired Americans. That's the thing we need."
After discussing Barack Obama's relationship with former Weather Underground member William Ayers, Letterman brought up McCain's relationship with G. Gordon Liddy, convicted in the Watergate scandal.
"I met him, you know, I mean," McCain said.
"Didn't you attend a fundraiser at his house?"
"Gordon Liddy's?" McCain asked.
They cut to commercial.
Coming back, McCain said, "I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt, he went to prison, he paid his debt. . . . I'm not in any way embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy."
LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By John Paul Filo -- Cbs Via Reuters; After bailing out on a "Letterman" appearance last month, John McCain finally makes it back last night.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
October 17, 2008 Friday
Met 2 Edition
As McCain's Road Gets Steeper, Obama Warns of Overconfidence
BYLINE: Dan Balz and Shailagh Murray; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A08
DATELINE: NEW YORK, Oct. 16
Republican John McCain may have stayed on the offensive during his final debate with Democrat Barack Obama, but for the last 19 days of the presidential campaign he will be playing nothing but defense.
The global financial crisis, coupled with Obama's steady performance through the three presidential debates, has left McCain with an extremely difficult path to the White House. Absent his ability to pick off any state won by the Democrats four years ago, he must prevent Obama from winning any of half a dozen Republican states that now appear vulnerable.
Republican strategists see trouble almost everywhere, facing the prospect of not only losing the White House but seeing Democratic majorities in the House and Senate grow as well. That could force a competition for resources during the final weeks, but strategists said a McCain comeback would be most helpful in relieving some of the pressure on other GOP candidates.
"The Republican brand's in trouble for all these guys," said Alex Castellanos, a party strategist. "It seems like an eternity ago, but it was only a few weeks, that the Republican brand was defined as populist, outsiders, McCain-Palin who are going to change Washington. Now we're back to a Republican brand that is George Bush, economy, and Wall Street and Washington insiders. That's hurt everybody."
The Republican National Committee's independent-expenditure ad unit, which is not legally permitted to coordinate with McCain, will spend $18 million over 18 days in just eight states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri and Colorado. All but Pennsylvania voted Republican in 2004.
Without a shift of voters back toward McCain, Republican candidates and party leaders may be forced in the next two weeks to confront the question of whether they should move more money to targeted congressional races to hold down anticipated losses in the House or Senate, or continue to try to hold the line for McCain in the Republican battlegrounds.
On the day after their clash at Hofstra University, Obama warned his supporters against overconfidence, while McCain sought to convince his that, despite national and state polls that show him trailing, there is time enough left to turn the race back in his direction.
Both campaigned in states won by the Democrats four years ago -- McCain in Pennsylvania, Obama in New Hampshire -- before returning here to appear Thursday night at the Al Smith Dinner, where they were expected to poke fun at themselves and each other.
But there was little levity on the GOP side about the plight of McCain and his campaign. The political climate has worsened, the electoral battlegrounds have shifted away from him over the past two weeks, and Obama enjoys a significant advantage in money to spend on television ads and voter mobilization.
At this point, strategists in both camps have virtually conceded Iowa and New Mexico, two states won narrowly by Bush in 2004, to Obama. McCain's campaign and the RNC still point to Pennsylvania and, to a lesser extent, New Hampshire as potential pickups. But McCain has so many red states to defend that he may not have either the time or the money to convert Democratic turf.
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said that, in addition to Iowa and New Mexico, he feels increasingly good about Virginia and Colorado. If Obama holds all the states Democrats won in 2004 and adds Iowa and New Mexico to his column, then he will need only one of those two to win the election. "The fact that both Virginia and Colorado have strengthened for us strategically could not be more important," he said.
But that also leaves Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri as potential wins, and Plouffe said the Obama campaign will go after not just the seven red states where the RNC has decided to make a stand in McCain's behalf but also such states as Nevada, West Virginia and Montana. "I think where this is headed is they're going to have to hold on to all the Bush states and play exclusively defense," he said.
McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt did not try to play down the obstacles his candidate faces but said he thinks the senator from Arizona remains in the fight. Schmidt said his reading of the election is that McCain is now running behind Obama by four to six points nationally.
"There is no question that we are operating in a political environment that is much more challenging for the McCain campaign than the Obama campaign," he said. "But despite the challenging environment, they have not been able to put the race away. We are within striking distance with every ability to win this election."
Obama sought to pump up his supporters with a stern message not to take the race for granted. "For those of you who are feeling giddy or cocky or think this is all set, I just have two words for you: New Hampshire," he told top contributors at a fundraising breakfast at the Metropolitan Club in New York, referring to his surprise loss to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primary there. "I've been in these positions before when we were favored and the press starts getting carried away and we end up getting spanked."
Though Obama spent his day in New Hampshire, his schedule this week speaks to the campaign's confidence. The Democrat spent three days in Toledo preparing for the final debate. He travels to Roanoke on Friday, heads to St. Louis and Kansas City on Saturday, and goes to Fayetteville, N.C., on Sunday.
McCain took his debate performance to the Philadelphia suburbs, where he talked about "Joe," the Ohio plumber who became the focal point of Thursday's debate. McCain railed against Obama for wanting to raise taxes, a mistake that he said would plunge the country from recession to depression.
"I thought I did pretty well," McCain said. "The real winner last night was Joe the Plumber. Joe's the man. He won, and small businesses won across America. . . . The American people are not going to let Senator Obama raise their taxes."
Schmidt said that Obama's comments to the Ohio plumber last week, in which the senator from Illinois said he wants to spread the wealth to more Americans, were "anathema" to the American people and set up a sharp contrast for the last weeks of campaigning. "Obama has every potential to tax and spend the country into a depression, and we will focus acutely on that," Schmidt said.
McCain faces challenges in so many states that Republican strategists said there is no state-by-state answer to his problem. "He's too far in the hole," said Mike Murphy, a former McCain adviser. "He has to move the whole country his way to get back in the game, and at that point the North Carolina-type problems will fade and he will be back in battle in places like Colorado, Ohio, New Hampshire and Nevada."
But Plouffe said he thinks Obama is actually stronger in the battleground states than he is nationally, thanks to a months-long focus on building individual campaigns in each of those places. "We believe we are disproportionately strong in the battlegrounds," he said.
Staff writers Chris Cillizza in Washington and Michael D. Shear in New York contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post; Jean Reid is bundled against the autumn chill as she listens to Barack Obama at Mack's Apples in Londonderry, N.H.
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October 17, 2008 Friday
Suburban Edition
Where Prescription Drugs and Doctor's Appointments Don't Mix;
__
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A23
Ken Johnson, senior vice president for communications and public affairs at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the giant drug lobby, is trying to clamp down on what he sees as staff abuse of administrative leave.
So he sent his 20 staffers a sharply worded e-mail ordering everyone to get approval well in advance if they want to take some time off. "In the future," he said, "if you send me an email at 1:00 pm. saying you have a doctor's appointment at 3:00 pm, you had better be dying or it will count toward your vacation time."
"Requests to attend to family matters," he continued in the Oct. 2 missive, "or other personal matters, religious holidays and anything of a similar nature must also be approved in advance. Additionally, all vacation requests must continue to be submitted in advance as well."
Johnson, asked about his unusual management style, said the company's human resources department had already "told me that wasn't the appropriate way to word it, but they understand my dark sense of humor."
Johnson said the e-mail was sparked by his having seen an aide walk into a nearby department store. But when he inquired as to the aide's whereabouts, he was told the fellow was at a doctor's appointment.
"In retrospect, I violated my own cardinal rule never to put it in an e-mail," Johnson said. "I should have just gone in and ball-and-chained the person to his desk."
"I push my people pretty hard some times, but the tone was meant to be a jest. Obviously someone didn't take it that way. I have never denied anyone's request for personal leave for any reason," he said, "vacation, religious holiday or just time off to get away from me."
Which isn't easy with a ball and chain.
Security and Numbers
Should Barack Obama be lucky -- or unlucky -- enough to win the presidency, he's going to find the transition process a lot easier than Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did. Both predecessors inherited a government run by the opposition party, obliging them to clear out most anyone left on Jan. 20 and then refill several hundred key jobs as fast as they could.
That meant waiting for FBI clearance checks, with delays of up to two months, before people could be named to top posts or have their names sent to the Senate for confirmation.
Obama would inherit similar circumstances, of course. But the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, passed as part of the post-9/11 Commission reforms, allows both candidates, after they are formally nominated, to submit an unspecified number of requests for security clearances for prospective transition-team members "who will have a need for access to classified" info.
That obviously applies to folks working on transition teams involving national security -- the Pentagon, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the intelligence agencies. But it's fuzzy enough to sweep in many more who'll be involved in the Department of Health and Human Services (biochem and all that), Transportation, Treasury, and the Justice Department -- along with the White House itself. It could include chiefs of staff, counsels and others who might need the clearance.
In all, the number could be anywhere from 100 to 200 people, and the Obama transition has been sending names over to the bureau for some time. (Unclear whether the McCain transition team has taken similar advantage of this opportunity, but they would not necessarily be confronting a near-void at senior positions.) The law says the FBI should complete the investigations by the day after the election, a manageable deadline at least for those people who held clearances in the Clinton administration.
Since many transition-team members have been known to move into top jobs where Senate confirmation is necessary, this should also speed nominations and reduce the number of "home alone" Cabinet members, a problem at some agencies that can last for several months after Inauguration Day.
Faster Than a FEMA Trailer
It's getting down to the wire for people with old television sets to switch to digital before the Feb. 17 deadline. A just-completed Consumers Union poll shows general awareness of the impending change to be 93 percent. Given that, some folks at the Federal Communications Commission think resources should now go to a system to answer calls and to assist seniors, the disabled, non-English speakers and others with their converter boxes and such.
But FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, back home yesterday in Charlotte, a hotbed of NASCAR activity, announced a nifty new public awareness project to have the FCC sponsor NASCAR driver David Gilliland and put a digital awareness ad on his No. 38 Ford in three races, starting Sunday.
FCC folks, alluding to idle chatter that Martin may be thinking of a run for GOP Rep. Sue Myrick's seat when she retires, are wondering about the NASCAR gambit, which is budgeted at $355,000. Martin, in his news release, said it's "an extremely effective way" to make sure racing fans know about the switch.
Upper House or Big House?
Back in much happier times, specifically on April 12, 2007, a couple of dozen senators rose on the floor of the chamber to pay tribute to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) during the week he became the longest-serving Republican senator in history.
Senator after senator rose to pay homage to the man they reverentially called "The King of Pork." Counting those who later added their tributes, some 30 of his colleagues rose to honor Stevens. All but four were Republican. The Democrats included his close friend Sen. Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), who noted that he and Stevens "have received the crown of being 'pork men of the year.' We are number one in add-ons in the U.S. Senate."
Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.) called Stevens "a man of immense integrity, high personal principles and unqualified honesty." There were warm toasts from Sen. Edward Kennedy (Mass.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.).
Now Stevens's Senate career may be in the hands of 12 residents of the District of Columbia, the jury in his trial in federal court on charges of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts and home improvements he received from a pal at an oil services company.
If the jury finds him not guilty, the political pundits say, he may well retain his seat. He's only slightly behind in the polls as it is. If he's convicted, well, there may be some lawmakers who'll want to, as they say, "revise and extend" their remarks.
Democrats' Good News, Bad News
Speaking of legal and ethical matters, Democrats are bemoaning the increasingly kinky news out of Florida, where incumbent Democratic Rep. Tim Mahoney enjoyed a healthy lead until news broke of his alleged affair with, and alleged subsequent payments to, a former staffer. And then there were reports of an alleged affair with another woman.
This is in the district long represented by Republican Mark Foley, who was forced to give it up after certain e-mails surfaced involving male ex-pages. (What's with that district? The water? The heat?) So that district, which leans GOP anyway, appears lost to the Dems. There are reports that the party is pulling the plug.
But the upside is that they stand to save maybe more than $1 million they would have spent on ad buys in a fairly expensive media market, trying to hold it for Mahoney. That money now can be spent on other candidates.
On the other hand, the Democrats have so much money they wouldn't even notice the savings.
Must be nice.
Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this column.
LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; No word at the drug lobby on whether you need a note from your doctor to get a note from your doctor.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
October 17, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
Who's Playing the Race Card?
BYLINE: Charles Krauthammer
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A25
Let me get this straight. A couple of agitated yahoos in a rally of thousands yell something offensive and incendiary, and John McCain and Sarah Palin are not just guilty by association -- with total strangers, mind you -- but worse: guilty according to the New York Times of "race-baiting and xenophobia."
But should you bring up Barack Obama's real associations -- 20 years with Jeremiah Wright, working on two foundations and distributing money with William Ayers, citing the raving Michael Pfleger as one who helps him keep his moral compass (Chicago Sun-Times, April 2004) and the long-standing relationship with the left-wing vote-fraud specialist ACORN -- you have crossed the line into illegitimate guilt by association. Moreover, it is tinged with racism.
The fact that, when John McCain actually heard one of those nasty things said about Obama, he incurred the boos of his own crowd by insisting that Obama is "a decent person . . . that you do not have to be scared [of] as president" makes no difference. It surely did not stop John Lewis from comparing McCain to George Wallace.
The search for McCain's racial offenses is untiring and often unhinged. Remember McCain's Berlin/celebrity ad that showed a shot of Paris Hilton? An appalling attempt to exploit white hostility at the idea of black men "becoming sexually involved with white women," fulminated New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. He took to TV to denounce McCain's exhumation of that most vile prejudice, pointing out McCain's gratuitous insertion in the ad of "two phallic symbols," the Washington Monument and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Except that Herbert was entirely delusional. There was no Washington Monument. There was no Leaning Tower. Just photographs seen in every newspaper in the world of Barack Obama's Berlin rally in the setting he himself had chosen, Berlin's Victory Column.
Herbert is not the only fevered one. On Tuesday night, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and Jonathan Alter of Newsweek fell over themselves agreeing that the "political salience" of the Republican attack on ACORN is, yes, its unstated appeal to racial prejudice.
This about an organization that is being accused of voter registration fraud in about a dozen states. In Nevada, the investigating secretary of state is a Democrat. Is he playing the race card, too?
What makes the charges against McCain especially revolting is that he has been scrupulous in eschewing the race card. He has gone far beyond what is right and necessary, refusing even to make an issue of Obama's deep, self-declared connection with the race-baiting Rev. Wright.
In the name of racial rectitude, McCain has denied himself the use of that perfectly legitimate issue. It is simply Orwellian for him to be now so widely vilified as a stoker of racism. What makes it doubly Orwellian is that these charges are being made on behalf of the one presidential candidate who has repeatedly, and indeed quite brilliantly, deployed the race card.
How brilliantly? The reason Bill Clinton is sulking in his tent is because he feels that Obama surrogates succeeded in painting him as a racist. Clinton has many sins, but from his student days to his post-presidency, his commitment and sincerity in advancing the cause of African Americans have been undeniable. If the man Toni Morrison called the first black president can be turned into a closet racist, then anyone can.
And Obama has shown no hesitation in doing so to McCain. Weeks ago, in Springfield, Mo., and elsewhere, he warned darkly that George Bush and John McCain were going to try to frighten you by saying that, among other scary things, Obama has "a funny name" and "doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills."
McCain has never said that, nor anything like that. When asked at the time to produce one instance of McCain deploying race, the Obama campaign could not. Yet here was Obama firing a preemptive charge of racism against a man who had not indulged in it. An extraordinary rhetorical feat, and a dishonorable one.
What makes this all the more dismaying is that it comes from Barack Obama, who has consistently presented himself as a healer, a man of a new generation above and beyond race, the man who would turn the page on the guilt-tripping grievance politics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
I once believed him.
·
Last week I wrote that in 1995 Bill Ayers gave Barack Obama a fundraiser in his home. I should instead have called it a campaign event.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2008
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October 17, 2008 Friday
Met 2 Edition
'We Tried Not to Cross the Line of Truth';
'We Tried Not to Cross the Line of Truth'
BYLINE: Michael Abramowitz; Washington Post Staff Writer
Oliver Stone is perhaps best known as the purveyor of compelling cinematic narratives of JFK and Nixon that had a loose association with the historical record. This time around, he is eager for his audience to understand that he is a rigorous fact-checker.
"Everything in the movie is annotated," Stone asserts during an interview Wednesday as he asks an assistant to retrieve a notebook containing the backup for all the scenes in "W.," his new biopic about George W. Bush, which opens Friday. The material will be posted on the movie's Web site, he says, and the world will see that though the director has taken certain liberties for dramatic effect, his basic findings and themes flow directly from the considerable body of work already published about Bush and his presidency.
"We're dramatists. I don't claim to be a historian or a documentarian," says Stone, looking intense and a tad disheveled the morning after the red-carpet premiere of his movie in Manhattan. "But we did read everything we could, and we tried not to cross the line of truth."
That proposition will surely be questioned for a movie that invents dialogue between Bush and his advisers in the Oval Office, speculates about the dreams that may haunt the president and presents a Freudian explanation for the invasion of Iraq as some kind of payback for a life-long series of resentments Bush has nursed against his dad, former president George H.W. Bush.
The release of "W." will also test whether there's any remaining commercial interest in a president whose approval ratings have bottomed out in recent months. By Stone's own telling, a number of Hollywood studios passed on the project, convinced there wasn't a market for a movie about Bush, leaving the 62-year-old director to finance the enterprise through foreign investors.
Even so, Stone is convinced that he still has a fantastic story to tell, the details of which he claims are still unknown by many Americans. "He's a character that you couldn't make up, bigger than fiction," Stone says, a fleck of his preppy upbringing in Connecticut and New York still audible in his voice. "He's bumbled his way into this mess -- into this extraordinary nightmare. Frank Capra could not make this up. He's the reverse of 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.' "
"It's a great story, for Chrissake," Stone goes on. "Mark Twain would tell it. Dickens would tell it. How could you ignore this guy? They ask me about Obama and McCain every day. . . . God, these are pygmies compared to what he has done. They are going to live in his shadow for a while."
Stone's obvious interest in the psychological roots of his character, a fascination Bush and his father famously detest, has Bushworld ready to trash a project few have actually seen. "From what I have seen from the script and from I have seen of the trailers, this is how the lunatic asylum inmates would write it," says Karl Rove, Bush's onetime political adviser. "It is so laughable to suggest that the actions of this president are driven by a dysfunctional relationship with his father."
Asked for her reaction, White House press secretary Dana Perino says only that "The Post's readers will understand that we have more important things to do than comment on this ridiculous movie."
Still, Stone's movie is probably more nuanced than the president's defenders might expect from a director they see as a kooky left-winger. Stone has tried to debunk some of the traditional stereotypes about Bush -- in particular the notion that he's been led around by the nose by Dick Cheney or Rove. A number of scenes make clear Stone's view that Bush is the dominant player in these relationships and that Bush is shrewder than his critics will concede.
As portrayed by Josh Brolin, Stone's Bush, while perhaps goofier than the real president, also conveys the powerful charisma that propelled the onetime black sheep of the Bush family to the presidency after his alcohol-dominated younger days. "He's oddly likable," Stone says. "I am empathetic, not sympathetic."
The empathy may stem from some shared personal experiences. Both Bush and Stone grew up as the children of privilege (Stone was the son of a wealthy stockbroker). Both matriculated at Yale in 1964, though Stone would drop out and later volunteered for combat duty in Vietnam. Bush finished his degree and headed south, where he avoided the war by serving in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guard.
Stone, whose Vietnam experience fueled some of his most successful work ("Platoon," "Born on the Fourth of July"), says he did not know Bush at Yale but "knew the type" -- "retrograde" frat boy, as he puts it. They met once, in 1999, when Stone was invited to a Bush fundraiser in Los Angeles. After the event, Stone met privately with the then-Texas governor and says he came away charmed and convinced that Bush would be elected president the next year.
Stone says the movie relied heavily on journalistic accounts of Bush that he says have broken through a "veil" of secrecy surrounding the administration; he cites in particular Bob Woodward's books, an account of prewar spin by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine," and books by New York Times correspondents Michael Gordon and James Risen.
"We could not have made this movie without those breakthroughs -- those books," Stone says. He also says he got little cooperation from anyone in the Bush family or the administration, not surprising given his leftist reputation; he does say he got some technical assistance from unidentified people in the military who helped him structure a key scene in the situation room.
There will be much that purists for accuracy won't like about this movie. Bush does not call his dad "Poppy," as the imaginary president does, nor does the elder Bush call his son "Junior." Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser take real quotes and place them in different contexts; they have Laura Bush telling her future husband, "I read. I smoke. I admire," a comment she actually made to Bush's grandmother. Nor did Rove routinely attend national security meetings, as the movie suggests, and he's a more robust figure in real life than as portrayed by Toby Jones, perhaps best known for playing Truman Capote in a previous film.
More seriously, Stone's account almost certainly overstates the amount of formal debate inside the administration about the decision to go to war in Iraq, and assigns to former secretary of state Colin Powell (played well by Jeffrey Wright) a much more vigorous role as war skeptic than the historical record so far seems to support. Stone concedes as much, saying he elevated Powell's role to sharpen the dramatic tension. But he says he captured the essential truth -- that, as he puts it, Powell was rolled by Bush and signed off on the invasion.
Similarly, Stone believes he's on target about the fundamental nature of the Bush-Rove relationship, what he describes as an intense "heterosexual attraction" between the pol and his closest adviser. Yet while he describes Rove as "Bush's brain," he says Bush is "in charge" and is not "this manipulated guy."
"I am sure he will be pleasantly surprised that he's not as ugly as he's perceived," Stone says of Rove, somewhat quixotically. "I think he's far uglier, and I think we gave him the benefit of the doubt, like we did with Powell."
Stone says his departures from literal truth were reasonable accommodations to heighten dramatic interest: "I think we got the overall thing right."
LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Sidney Ray Baldwin -- Lionsgate; Director Oliver Stone, left, consults with the cinematic George W. Bush, played by Josh Brolin. "Everything in the movie is annotated," the director says.
IMAGE; By Chris Pizzello -- Associated Press
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
October 17, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
After Debate, Glare Of Media Hits Joe;
Plumbers Union, Tax Collectors Notice
BYLINE: Robert Barnes; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02
"The real winner" of Wednesday night's debate, John McCain said yesterday at a campaign stop in Downingtown, Pa., "was Joe the Plumber."
That might depend on the definition of "winner."
Joe the Plumber, a.k.a. Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, is suddenly (sort of) a household name, featured in a McCain ad and sought after by networks news anchors and newspaper reporters. McCain would like to meet him in person this weekend, but Wurzelbacher's got a date on Mike Huckabee's Fox News show and might not have the time.
But the emergence of Joe has allowed the state of Ohio to locate the man it says owes nearly $1,200 in back taxes. His motives for confronting Sen. Barack Obama at a campaign stop in his neighborhood earlier this week are the subject of intense Internet speculation. The city of Toledo is preparing a letter to his employer seeking to determine whether he is violating city codes, and the plumbers union is on his tail.
"Joe the Plumber really isn't a plumber," said Thomas Joseph, business manager of Local 50 of the United Association of Plumbers, Steamfitters and Service Mechanics, whose national membership has endorsed Obama.
Wurzelbacher, 34, had already taken tentative steps onto the national stage after talking to Obama on Sunday as the Democrat toured his suburban neighborhood outside Toledo. Wurzelbacher told Obama that he wants to buy the plumbing company he works for, and that his potential income of more than $250,000 would make him eligible for increased taxes under Obama's proposals.
"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" Wurzelbacher asked.
Obama's answer to that and a question about the flat tax -- that Obama thought it better to "spread the wealth around" -- captured the attention of conservative media and the McCain campaign.
"Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years, worked 10, 12 hours a day," McCain told Obama at the start of Wednesday night's debate. "And he wanted to buy the business, but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes," deferring what McCain called "the American dream."
Joe the Plumber quickly became a metaphor for the middle class, and between them, McCain and Obama mentioned him more than two dozen times.
The result was an avalanche of attention: "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric on the phone, "Good Morning America" awaiting an interview, reporters in the driveway of his modest home.
"I'm completely flabbergasted with this whole thing," he told reporters. He did not return a phone call from The Washington Post.
The morning also showed that the spotlight can be unwelcome. Reporters wondering who Wurzelbacher is quickly found that he owes the state of Ohio $1,182 in back taxes, leading sharp-tongued liberal commentators to say he was not so much concerned about rising taxes as paying taxes at all. (A spokeswoman for the state said it is possible Wurzelbacher did not know about the lien.)
Wurzelbacher also acknowledged to reporters that he did not have a plumber's license but said he did not need one to do residential work with the two-man Newell Heating and Plumbing Co., which does have a license.
David Golis, a manager in Toledo's office of building inspections, said that is incorrect. "We were just discussing that we will send a letter to the owner of Newell reminding him" of the city's requirement that all who do plumbing work be licensed or in apprentice or journeyman programs, Golis said.
Union manager Joseph said that Wurzelbacher applied for an apprentice program in 2003 but never completed the work.
And Wurzelbacher told reporters that the goal of buying the business was more aspirational than firm. He said his income is "not even close" to the levels at which Obama's proposed tax increases would kick in.
Even if Wurzelbacher's hypothetical were true, tax experts said it is unclear whether he would pay higher taxes under Obama's plan.
Wurzelbacher told Couric that it is Obama's approach to tax increases that are worrisome. "When's he going to decide that $100,000 is too much, you know?" the divorced father of a 13-year-old son said. "I mean, you're on a slippery slope here. You vote on somebody who decides that $250,000 and you're rich? And $100,000 and you're rich? I mean, where does it end?"
McCain senior adviser Matt McDonald said Thursday that the Republican nominee had mentioned Wurzelbacher's encounter with Obama in a previous speech, but the campaign had not said he would be the centerpiece of McCain's debate performance.
That Wurzelbacher is not a licensed plumber or that his situation is not relevant to Obama's tax proposal did not give him pause, McDonald said. "He's a guy who asked a question that needed to be asked," McDonald said. "He's not a campaign staffer; he's not a surrogate. He's not someone who was vetted, and this wasn't something orchestrated by the campaign."
Appearing on CBS's "Late Show With David Letterman" on Thursday night, McCain mentioned the attention Joe the Plumber was getting and said, "Joe, if you're watching, I'm sorry."
Earlier in the day in New Hampshire, Obama said McCain advocates tax plans that favor the rich.
"He's trying to suggest that a plumber is the guy he's fighting for," Obama said. "How many plumbers do you know that are making a quarter-million dollars a year?"
Wurzelbacher has made that he is conservative and no fan of Obama -- he told Couric that Obama's answer to his question was a "tap dance" that was "almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr." -- but declined to say who he will be voting for Nov. 4.
That is between him and the lever in the voting booth, he said.
LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By J.d. Pooley -- Getty Images; The day after the presidential nominees' last debate, Joe Wurzelbacher greets members of the media at his home in Holland, Ohio.
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The Washington Post
October 17, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
Two Answers to the Question 'More of the Same?'
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A10
MCCAIN AD
McCain: The last eight years haven't worked very well, have they? I'll make the next four better. Your savings, your job and your financial security are under siege.
Washington is making it worse -- bankrupting us with their spending. Telling us paying higher taxes is "patriotic"? And saying we need to "spread the wealth around"? They refuse common-sense solutions for energy independence.
So every day we send billions to the Middle East. We need a new direction, and I have a plan. Your savings. We'll rebuild them. Your investments. They'll grow again. Energy. We'll drill here, and we'll create a renewable-energy economy. Lower taxes and less spending will protect your job and create new ones. That'll restore our country.
Stand up with me, let's fight for America.
OBAMA AD
McCain: Senator Obama, I am not President Bush.
Narrator: True, but you did vote with Bush 90 percent of the time. Tax breaks for big corporations and the wealthy. But almost nothing for the middle class -- same as Bush. Keep spending 10 billion a month in Iraq while our own economy struggles -- same as Bush. You may not be George Bush, but . . . (McCain:) I voted with the president over 90 percent of the time, higher than a lot of my even Republican colleagues.
ANALYSIS
Both candidates, in these quickie spots after their final debate, are tackling the question of whether a McCain administration would differ little from that of President Bush. John McCain's 60-second ad contains a remarkable admission for a Republican candidate, essentially declaring the two terms of the president of his party a failure. In declaring that he'll make "the next four better," the senator from Arizona is trying to distance himself not just from specific Bush policies but from the president himself. If Washington is "bankrupting us with their spending," as McCain says, it is Bush who was in charge, along with a Republican Congress for six of the eight years.
McCain undercuts his case by not explaining whom he is quoting. The line about how paying taxes is "patriotic" comes from Barack Obama's running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. Obama made the "spread the wealth" comment in discussing tax policy with the man whom McCain kept invoking in Wednesday's debate, "Joe the Plumber" from Ohio. The effect is just to blame the country's direction on "Washington" -- where McCain has been a member of Congress for 26 years -- rather than draw a sharp contrast with the Democratic ticket. McCain is not specific about his economic and energy plans, but his promise of "lower spending" fails to acknowledge that he recently voted for the $700 billion federal bailout of the banking system. Obama's 30-second ad is effective because it ties his opponent to Bush by using McCain's own words. The senator from Illinois is being selective in charging that McCain would shower tax breaks on "big corporations and the wealthy." By extending the Bush tax cuts, McCain would continue the lower rates for all businesses and individuals who pay taxes, although the most affluent would receive the biggest share. The ad says McCain would continue to spend $10 billion a month on Iraq but sidesteps the fact that Obama would also have to spend billions on the war because, under his best-case scenario, it would take 16 months to withdraw all U.S. troops. But no one can argue with McCain himself declaring that he's voted with Bush 90 percent of the time, when he was still trying to win the GOP nomination. The focus of these dueling ads is at the heart of the campaign: whether McCain credibly represents change, or more of the same.
Video of this ad can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
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Joe the Plumber steals final debate's spotlight;
Candidates use story to advantage
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
DATELINE: DOWNINGTON, Pa.
Joe the Plumber dominated the presidential campaign Thursday, with Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain saying the everyman from Toledo, Ohio, exposes Democratic tax-and-spend plans and Democrats trying to make the plumber's story crack under counterattacks.
Joe Wurzelbacher, who unwittingly became the star of Wednesday's final presidential debate, found himself Thursday fielding television interviews and parrying questions from reporters trying to poke holes in his story that he wants to buy a plumbing business and Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's tax increases on high-income earners could punish him for doing well.
Mr. McCain told a rally in Downington, Pa., on Thursday that Joe the Plumber's story is symbolic of what Mr. Obama wants to do.
"He wants government to take Joe's money and give it to somebody else. His hard-earned dollars," Mr. McCain said. "America didn't become the greatest nation on earth by spreading the wealth. We became the greatest nation on earth by creating new wealth."
Democrats said their priority is other average joes, and deployed their own Joe to make the case.
"We're worried about Joe the guy who owns the gas station, the barber, the grocer," Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. told ABC. "Joe the plumber, who's making over $250,000, is not going to get any more additional tax cuts with us."
Both sides claimed victory from Wednesday's debate, but what's indisputable is that with less than three weeks before Election Day Mr. Obama holds a significant lead over Mr. McCain both nationally and in key states.
Still, Mr. Obama warned supporters at a fundraiser in Manhattan not to become complacent.
"For those of you who are feeling giddy or cocky or think this is all set, I just have two words for you: New Hampshire," Mr. Obama said, referring to his loss to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary in January. "I've been in these positions before when we were favored and the press starts getting carried away and we end up getting spanked."
Both campaigns began running new ads: Republicans' commercial shows an Oval Office and says Mr. Obama isn't ready to sit in the chair during a crisis. Mr. Obama's ad argues Mr. McCain would continue Bush administration policies, despite Mr. McCain's declaration of independence in Wednesday's debate from President Bush.
In the debate, Mr. Obama criticized Mr. McCain over spectators at several campaign events shouting "kill him" or "treason" at the mention of Mr. Obama or Weather Underground founder William Ayres. Some of the accounts are corroborated by video evidence; but at least two of the accounts relied on reporters covering the event and could not be confirmed by the Secret Service.
Mr. McCain defended his supporters and told his Pennsylvania audience he was "proud" of them.
Minutes later, as he was talking about the economy, a woman in the audience shouted "No-bama," prompting Mr. McCain to hold up his hands as if to plead for patience, and say: "Look, I need to have a conversation with you for a few minutes here."
Later, the Republican found himself stuck in airport delays in Philadelphia and had to order up a helicopter to take him into Manhattan in order not to miss a taping with CBS's David Letterman.
He used Mr. Letterman's show to apologize to Joe the Plumber for the attention: "Joe, if you're watching, I'm sorry."
But it was too late - Mr. Wurzelbacher was all the political establishment was talking about.
Pundits debated whether he would actually be covered under Mr. Obama's proposed tax increases, which would roll back the Bush income tax cuts for those making at least $250,000. And Mr. Wurzelbacher acknowledged to reporters he doesn't actually have plans to buy Newell Plumbing and Heating, the business he works for, but has talked with the owner about it.
The Associated Press reported he doesn't have a plumber's license, and owes more than $1,000 in back-taxes. They also reported he voted in the Republican primary and indicated he backed Mr. McCain but wouldn't say who he is voting for in the general election. Mr. Wurzelbacher said he's been overwhelmed.
"I'm kind of like Britney Spears having a headache. Everybody wants to know about it," he said.
* Christina Bellantoni contributed to this article.
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Presidential debates;
Pivotal facts missed
BYLINE: By Alan Nathan, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
In all three presidential debates, some pivotal facts have been grotesquely obscured. The very law that Democrats cite as the reason for our current financial mess, and the one for which they blame Sen. John McCain, is a law that he opposed and they supported - along with the majority of both Republicans and Democrats that included Sen. Barack Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. Here's a quick recap in case you missed it: They're condemning Mr. McCain for a bill they backed and he rejected. Did I happen to mention that they're holding Mr. McCain responsible for a law he fought, they defended, and President Clinton signed? If I seem overly insistent about making this abundantly clear, it's because we're currently burdened with a press so cataclysmically obtuse, intellectually barren and academically impoverished, that even well-documented facts are either underreported or completely ignored should they run contrary to the fortunes of Mr. Obama.
The law in question is the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. This repealed the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act because the 106th Congress believed that the old law's separation of commercial and investment banking had become obsolete. The House vote was 362-57 and the Senate was 90-8. While Mr. McCain voted for it on the first sweep, he was one of the eight opposing it when it came out of the House-Senate Conference Committee. Paradoxically, however, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused the GOP candidate for what 80 percent of the House and 90 percent of the Senate actually championed, ahem ? including Mr. Reid.
These facts, however, didn't stop Sam Donaldson of ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" from falsifying history on Sept. 21 when commenting on the 1999 law. He said that Mr. McCain has "the heaviest burden here, since he voted for all the deregulation, [and] for him to now say he would be the toughest re-regulator is kind of a hard thing to swallow." Adopting Mr. Donaldson's ignorance through their own silence were fellow panelists George Will of The Washington Post, Cokie Roberts of National Public Radio and Donna Brazile of Roll Call Magazine.
In 2005, then Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan foretold of the mess that would be confronting us today unless we brought more oversight to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Responding at the time was Republican Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, then chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. He, with help from Mr. McCain, sponsored the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act that survived a party-line vote out of committee but was later batted down by Senate Democrats.
This law would have provided the very regulatory oversight about which all on Capitol Hill are now insisting should have happened. It seems monumentally simplistic to blame Mr. McCain for a debacle that could have been stopped had his critics voted with him when it mattered most.
Refusing to acknowledge that his party's coddling of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac blocked desperately needed regulation and oversight, Democrat Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank instead charges that Republicans are racist for pointing it out. How does he make the racist connection? There has been something called the Community Reinvestment Act geared to making it easier for lower-income families to own houses. Given that this was one of the mishandled programs contributing to our current financial maelstrom, its defenders naturally wish to hide behind the race of many of its intended recipients - thus escaping accountability for harming those same recipients.
People of color should find it insulting that an elected official like Mr. Frank would use their skin as a shield for his guilt.
This mindset is apparent whenever Mr. Obama is criticized for his relationship with the scandal-soaked former Fannie Mae chief executive Franklin Raines. On July 16, The Washington Post reported that he had "taken calls from Mr. Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters." The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight charged Mr. Raines for his part in manipulating the record of Fannie Mae's earnings for over six years. These violations helped to trigger a multibillion dollar accounting fiasco that rocked Wall Street in December 2004. In April of this year, Mr. Raines was required to pay $ 24.7 million for his participation. When Casey Hendrickson of KXNT Radio in Las Vegas questioned Mr. Harry Reid about this on Oct. 9, Mr. Reid said that, "The only connection that people could bring up about Raines and Barack Obama is that they both are African-American, other than that there is nothing." Question: How long has the senator been on this pharmacological excursion?
Messrs. Frank, Reid and Obama must learn that if it's wrong to assume guilt based on race, then it's equally wrong to shield guilt based on race. The only ones not recognizing this are racists themselves.
Alan Nathan is a columnist and the nationally syndicated host of "Battle Line With Alan Nathan."
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 16, 2008 Thursday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Big government just ahead
WE'RE IN the middle of a financial crisis, but most economists say there is a broader economic crisis still to come. The unemployment rate will shoot upward. Commercial real estate values will decline. Credit card defaults will rise. The nonprofit sector will be hammered.
By the time the recession is in full force, Democrats will probably be running the government. Barack Obama will probably be in the White House. Democrats will have a comfortable majority in the House and will control between 56 and 60 seats in the Senate.
The party will inherit big deficits. David Leonhardt, my colleague at The Times, estimates that the deficit will be around $750 billion next year, or 5 percent of GDP. Democrats had promised to pay for new spending with compensatory cuts, but the economic crisis will dissolve pay-as-you-go vows. New federal spending will come in four streams.
First, there will be the bailouts. Once upon a time, there were concerns about moral hazard. But resistance to corporate bailouts is gone. If Bear Stearns and AIG can get bailouts, then so can car companies, airlines and other corporations with direct links to Main Street.
Second, there will be more stimulus packages. The first stimulus package, passed early this year, was a failure because people spent only 10 to 20 percent of the rebate dollars and saved the rest. Martin Feldstein of Harvard calculates the package added $80 billion to the national debt while producing less than $20 billion in consumer spending. Nonetheless, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promises another package, and it will pass.
Third, we're in for a Keynesian renaissance. The Fed has little room to stimulate the economy, so Democrats will use government outlays to boost consumption. Nouriel Roubini of New York University argues that the economy will need a $300 billion fiscal stimulus.
Obama has already promised a clean energy/jobs program that would cost $150 billion over 10 years. He's vowed $60 billion in infrastructure spending over the same period. He promises a range of tax credits -- $4,000 a year for college tuition, up to $3,000 for child care, $7,000 for a clean car, a mortgage tax credit.
Fourth, there will be tax cuts. On Monday, Obama promised new tax subsidies to small business, which could cost tens of billions. That's on top of his promise to cut taxes for 95 percent of American households. His tax plans aren't as irresponsible as John McCain's, but the Tax Policy Center still says they would reduce revenues by $2.8 trillion over the next decade.
Finally, there will be a health care plan. Obama will spend billions more to widen coverage. Obama's plan has many virtues, but the cost-saving measures are chimerical.
When you add it all up, we're not talking about a deficit that is 5 percent of GDP, but something much, much, much larger.
The new situation will reopen old rifts in the Democratic Party. On the one side, liberals will argue (are already arguing) that it was deregulation and trickle-down economic policies that led us to this crisis. Fears of fiscal insolvency are overblown. Democrats should use their control of government and the economic crisis as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make some overdue changes.
On the other hand, the remaining moderates will argue that it was excess and debt that created this economic crisis. They will argue (are arguing) that it is perfectly legitimate to increase the deficit with stimulus programs during a recession, but that these programs need to be carefully targeted and should sunset as the crisis passes.
Obama will try to straddle the two camps -- he seems to sympathize with both sides -- but the liberals will win. Over the past decade, liberals have mounted a campaign against Robert Rubin-style economic policies, and they control the congressional power centers.
Even if he's so inclined, it's difficult for a president to overrule the committee chairmen of his own party. It is more difficult to do that when the president is a Washington novice and the chairmen are skilled political hands. It is most difficult when the president has no record of confronting his own party elders.
What we're going to see, in short, is the Gingrich revolution in reverse and on steroids. There will be a big increase in spending and deficits. The overreach is coming. The backlash is next.
David Brooks is a columnist with The New York Times.
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 16, 2008 Thursday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Facts go all slippery during presidential debate
By Calvin Woodward and Jim Kuhnhenn
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON
Facts went astray on tax cuts, negative campaign advertising and oil exports Wednesday when Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain engaged in their third and final presidential debate. Some examples:
Obama: "Every dollar that I've proposed, I've proposed an additional cut, so that it matches."
The facts: The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that his proposed programs would add $281 billion to the deficit at the end of his first term. The analysis includes Obama's proposals for saving money.
McCain: "We have to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much."
The facts: This is a reference to U.S. spending on oil imports. McCain has repeatedly made this claim. But the figure is highly inflated and misleading. According to government agencies that track energy imports, the United States spent $246 billion in 2007 for all imported crude oil, a majority of it coming from friendly nations including neighboring Canada and Mexico. An additional $82 billion was spent on imported refined petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel and fuel oil. Most of the refined products come from refineries in friendly countries.
Obama: "One hundred percent, John, of your ads - 100 percent of them - have been negative."
The facts: The statement is true when it comes to McCain's current commercial spots. But by saying McCain's ads "have been" 100 percent negative, Obama ventures into misleading territory. McCain is currently running all negative ads, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But he has run a number of positive ads during the campaign.
McCain: "Sen . Obama is spending unprecedented amounts of money in negative attack ads on me."
The facts: Obama is spending unprecedented amounts of money on ads, period - negative or otherwise. Obama is outspending McCain and the Republican Party by more than 2-to-1 in presidential ads. At one point in August, 90 percent of the ads Obama was airing were against McCain. A study conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that about 34 percent of Obama's ads are now negative.
Obama: "I want to provide a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans, 95 percent."
The facts: Obama constantly says this. But the independent Tax Policy Center says his plan cuts taxes for 81.3 percent of all households in 2009.
McCain: "Now, we have allocated $750 billion. Let's take 300 of that billion and go in and buy those home loan mortgages and negotiate with those people in their homes, 11 million homes or more, so that they can afford to pay the mortgage, stay in their home."
The facts: Ordering the government to buy up bad mortgages to cut homeowners' monthly payments might sound good, but experts are skeptical. They say the plan McCain is promoting is unlikely to solve the housing crisis that's pushing the economy toward recession.
McCain: "Sen. Obama, as a member of the Illinois state Senate, voted in the Judiciary Committee against a law that would provide immediate medical attention to a child born in a failed abortion. He voted against that."
Obama: "If it sounds incredible that I would vote to withhold lifesaving treatment from an infant, that's because it's not true."
The facts: As a state senator, Obama opposed three bills, in 2001, 2002 and 2003, to give legal protections to any aborted fetus that showed signs of life. The 2003 bill was virtually identical to one President Bush signed in 2002; it passed before Obama was in the U.S. Senate, but Obama said he would have supported it. Illinois already had a law to protect aborted fetuses born alive and considered able to survive. Among those opposed to the state effort was the Illinois State Medical Society, which argued that the bill would interfere with the doctor-patient relationship and expand liability for doctors. Critics said the bill would have undermined the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling in ways the federal law would not.
McCain: "Sen . Obama talks about voting for budgets. He voted twice for a budget resolution that increases the taxes on individuals making $42,000 a year."
The facts: The vote was on a nonbinding resolution and did not increase taxes. The resolution assumed that President Bush's tax cuts would expire, as scheduled, in 2011. If that actually happened, it could mean higher taxes for people making as little as about $42,000.
Obama: "We can cut the average family's premium by $2,500 a year."
The facts: If that sounds like a straight-ahead promise to lower health insurance premiums, it isn't. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four. Many economists are skeptical those savings can be achieved .
McCain: Warned a small business owner that he would be fined under Obama's health care plan if he did not provide health insurance for workers.
The facts: Obama's health care plan does not impose fines on small business. He would provide small businesses with a refundable tax credit of up to 50 percent on premiums paid on behalf of employees. Large and medium-sized businesses that do not offer meaningful coverage or contribute to it would be required to pay a percentage of payroll toward a public insurance plan. Small businesses would be exempt.
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The Washington Post
October 16, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
'Latinos '08': A Split Ticket;
PBS Documentary Questions Assumptions About Voters
BYLINE: David Montgomery; Washington Post Staff Writer
Jackie Kennedy looks into our eyes and speaks perfect French-accented Spanish, politely soliciting votes for her husband in a 1960 campaign commercial.
It was the first time a presidential campaign paid such attention to Latino voters, and it was good for the Democrats. To this day, some Mexican restaurants have pictures of JFK posted next to images of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The competition for those votes has gotten only more sophisticated and bipartisan. Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain have deployed rival Hispanic outreach teams in a parallel universe of dueling Spanish-language campaigns in battleground states.
One of the best things about the new PBS documentary "Latinos '08" (10:30 tonight on Maryland Public Television) is that it challenges a premise of such efforts -- the assumption that the Latino vote is a monolithic bloc that can be appealed to and delivered as one. The film commits an even more refreshing heresy: It questions whether the Latino vote really is as critical as everyone says it is.
"There is an industry promoting how important the Latino vote is," says Rodolfo de la Garza, a professor at Columbia University, one of many analysts interviewed. "It is one of the most overstated, self-congratulatory exercises in American politics today."
Yet credit the higher truth-telling of this brisk, brief (one-hour) political, demographic and cultural tour that it also resists taking refuge in easy contrarianism, which is as overly simple as the conventional wisdom. Rather than present us with a neat package of the Latino influence as either-or, this-or-that, it unwraps the package and reveals something with more to it than many presume.
Director Phillip Rodriguez knows his way around this territory of ironies and pieties layered upon an undeniably real demographic bedrock. Last year he made "Brown Is the New Green: George Lopez and the American Dream," about how efforts to profit from the ballooning Latino market are shaping perceptions of the Latino identity.
In Rodriguez's account, Kennedy's outreach put the Latino vote in the pocket of the Democrats, who proceeded to take it for granted. Along came Ronald Reagan and President Bush, former Western governors who showed that the Latino political identity is not so predictable. Bush won more than 40 percent of the Latino vote in 2004, a GOP record.
Rodriguez lets his parade of analysts consider the rival appeals of McCain and Obama. Has McCain backslid on his commitment to immigration reform? Is Obama's race a problem for some Latinos? (A weakness of the film is its reliance on these talking heads, as eloquent and unpredictable as they are.) Some polls show Latinos supporting Obama over McCain nearly 3 to 1.
But what about cultural identity, and how does that inform decisions made inside the voting booth?
De la Garza describes a bar in Houston. Mexicans go Friday nights, Chicanos on Saturday nights. The crowds rarely mix: Immigrants and descendants of immigrants have a lot not in common.
Latinos also lack a common national story, hailing from more than a dozen countries. Some are born citizens (Puerto Ricans); some are welcomed as soon as they touch American soil (Cubans). Latinos in the West display more of a self-assured swagger than Latinos in some parts of the East, where they are newly arrived and under siege.
"The Latino community, depending on where you are, is the only one where if you say 'salsa,' half of them start dancing and half of them start eating," de la Garza says.
And yet, seeming disunity and diversity aren't the whole story. The common threat of immigrant-bashing created a pan-Latino identity that appeared strongest in 2006, when hundreds of thousands marched for immigration reform.
"God bless the racists, they managed to unite us," says columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr.
The tough-on-illegal-immigration crowd doesn't understand why many legal residents and citizens take its rhetoric personally. It's another nuance of Latino identity: Vast numbers of illegal immigrants have children, spouses or other family members who are legal residents.
"You start going after them and you are disrupting American families," de la Garza says. "That won't play."
Since rhetoric against illegal immigrants is a staple of more Republican campaigns than Democratic ones, the GOP might want to think about this: Roughly half a million Latinos become eligible voters each year just by turning 18.
"If you are attacking us, we will remember," says the Rev. Luis Cortés Jr., president of a powerful federation of evangelical churches. "That means you will never have a Republican president in the future."
But translating demographic power into political power is no sure thing. Rates of Latino voter eligibility and turnout among eligible voters both lag behind those of whites and blacks.
Obama's newest Spanish-language TV and radio spots subtly acknowledge the target audience's diversity: The narrator in Florida has a Caribbean-Spanish accent, whereas the narrator in the other states sounds more Mexican.
Maybe we've learned something since Jackie Kennedy's day.
But looking into the future, his camera sentimentally panning the classic American monuments of Washington -- a bit of heavy-handed symbolism -- Rodriguez leaves open the ultimate political meaning of this expanding minority with its hard-to-figure identity.
"Over time, there's going to be so many Latinos that they can be a national elections player," de la Garza says. "But will they be Latinos when you get that many?"
Cortés says, "My concern is that we will still maintain a grain of identity that says, 'I am Latino.' "
De la Garza has the film's last word, one that seems honest and real: "What will it mean to be a Latino? I don't know."
Latinos '08 (one hour) airs tonight at 10:30 on Maryland Public Television.
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Claudio Rocha; "Latinos '08," directed by Phillip Rodriguez, below, ponders whether the Latino vote is a unified bloc or even critical.
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The Washington Post
October 16, 2008 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
Both Campaigns Distorting Facts on Money Matters
BYLINE: Michael Dobbs; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
John McCain has asserted that his Democratic rival plans to raise taxes on anyone making more than $42,000 a year and will force all Americans into a "government-run" health-care system. Barack Obama has accused the GOP presidential candidate of planning "the largest middle-class tax increase in history" and gambling with the Social Security earnings of millions of American seniors.
All these allegations, a sampling of charges traded back and forth on the campaign trail and in the three presidential debates over the past few weeks, are false.
During the final presidential debate last night, both candidates made their share of factual errors and distorted their rivals' positions. Obama again was misleading in describing the effects of McCain's health-care proposal, while McCain again recycled the false assertion that Obama had voted to raise taxes on people making $42,000 a year.
Some of the sharpest back-and-forth over economic issues concerned the taxes that an Ohio plumber named Joe Wurzelbacher stands to pay under a possible Obama administration. McCain was correct in stating that Joe the Plumber will end up paying a higher marginal tax rate under the Obama plan if his small business makes more than $250,000 a year. But McCain was wrong to say that Obama is planning to fine Joe the Plumber and other small-business owners if they fail to provide health insurance for their employees.
As the U.S. economy has unraveled, both McCain and Obama have been stepping up their efforts to convince voters that disaster lies ahead if their opponent ends up in the White House. At the same time, economists say, both candidates have played down the sacrifices that will be necessary to put the nation back on a path to fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets.
While there is no evidence that today's candidates are any more untruthful than their predecessors, the explosion of media outlets and the rise of the Internet have made it difficult for fact-checkers to keep track of the fibs peddled by the rival political camps. Exaggerations, misstatements and outright falsehoods crop up daily in a cascade of campaign spin, from major speeches to political blogs to video releases targeted at specific markets.
"It's like drinking from a fire hose," said Brooks Jackson, director of the Web site FactCheck.org, who has been truth-squadding presidential campaigns since 1991.
Many of the misleading attacks reflect standard partisan positions, Jackson said, with Republicans attacking Democrats for an alleged propensity to raise taxes and with Democrats criticizing Republicans for ignoring more vulnerable Americans. He noted that McCain had "systematically misrepresented Obama's tax proposals over a long period of time," prompting Obama to turn around and do "the same thing" with the McCain health-care plan.
"The big McCain deception about Obama is that he will tax everybody," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania. "But there is nothing in the Obama plan that can reasonably be described as higher taxes on people who make less than $250,000 a year."
McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly accused the senator from Illinois of voting to raise taxes on people making $42,000 a year, and suggested that this is a key part of the Democrat's campaign platform. The charge stems from the Democrat's vote in favor of nonbinding resolutions that assume, for budgeting purposes, that the Bush tax cuts will expire in 2011, as scheduled. Obama has promised to extend the Bush tax cuts for all but the highest-income groups.
Similarly, there is little to support McCain's charge that Obama would "force families into a government-run health-care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor." The Obama plan bears little resemblance to the socialized national health systems in Britain and some other European countries and is based instead on expanding the current U.S. system of privately backed health insurance.
The Obama campaign, meanwhile, has repeatedly mischaracterized the McCain health-care plan as "the largest middle-class tax increase in history," in the phrase of a recent Obama television ad. While it is true that McCain wants to tax employer-provided health insurance for the first time, he is also promising a tax credit of between $2,500 and $5,000 to encourage Americans to buy their own health insurance. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the tax credit will more than offset the higher tax for most Americans over the next decade.
As the Wall Street meltdown accelerated last month, Obama told Florida retirees that their Social Security earnings would have been "tied up" in the falling stock market "if my opponent had his way." While McCain has expressed support for a Bush administration plan to allow some Americans to establish "private retirement accounts," the proposal would not have applied to current retirees, and nobody would have been obliged to participate.
An even bigger question, economists said, is whether the election promises of either candidate are at all realistic at a time of rising international indebtedness and growing budget deficits. Both Obama and McCain have talked in general terms about the need for economic sacrifice but have shied away from spelling out what this will mean.
"No candidate has ever won office by identifying the tax increases and spending cuts that they will have to implement if elected," said Eugene Steuerle, a Reagan-era Treasury official now with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. "That's been the case throughout history, and it is certainly true of this election."
While McCain has talked about the need to eliminate earmark spending, and Obama has said he would increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans, "those are very small numbers" in relation to the scale of the problem, Steuerle said. The Tax Policy Center has projected a $459 billion deficit by 2012 under an Obama administration, and a $604 billion deficit under a McCain administration, even before the latest "economic stimulus" packages announced this week.
Both candidates have sought to blame the rival political party for the current meltdown on Wall Street through a very selective telling of history. McCain has blamed the crisis on the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac making overly risky loans "with the encouragement of Senator Obama and his cronies and friends in Washington." Obama has blamed deregulation efforts championed by Republicans such as McCain.
Independent analysts said that it is a distortion to single out any one factor as the cause of the meltdown. Both political parties had deep ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Democrats supported deregulation of Wall Street during the Clinton administration.
"They both want to assign partisan blame for the economic crisis, which is kind of silly, as there is so much blame to spread around," said Jackson of FactCheck.org.
The verbal brinkmanship has not been confined to the economy. According to Jamieson, some of the most egregious deception has concerned the character of the candidates. She cites McCain campaign attacks on Obama for "palling around with terrorists" -- a reference to his acquaintance with former Weather Underground co-founder William Ayers -- and subtle hints by the Obama camp that McCain is too old to be president.
An Obama ad released in August that was titled "Out of Touch" used slowed-down video of McCain and President Bush at the White House following footage of the senator from Arizona with George H.W. Bush in a golf cart. The effect of the slowed-down footage, says Jamieson, was to show McCain "blinking his eyes really slowly, with jerky motions, reinforcing the age stereotype." An off-screen commentator said McCain "cannot even remember anymore" how many houses he owns, twisting his original words.
An Obama spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said that the conclusion drawn by Jamieson was "completely ridiculous."
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Democrat Barack Obama is misleading in describing how McCain's health-care proposal would affect Americans.
IMAGE; Photos By Spencer Platt -- Getty Images; Republican John McCain again falsely says Obama voted to raise taxes on people making $42,000 a year.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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October 16, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
Candidates Make A Name for This Guy Joe
Jackie Gleason, famous comedian of first-generation television, often played an everyman character named Joe the Bartender -- but it was everyman Joe the Plumber who unintentionally stole the show last night at the final presidential debate between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, aired live from Hofstra University in New York. It was an unusual situation: a real man who became apocryphal before the night was over, so often was he summoned as an example of this or that by whichever candidate found it expeditious to cite him.
News organizations no doubt set to work scrambling to find Joe the Plumber and give him the rest of his 15 minutes of fame; the electronic media are ever on the lookout for ways to trivialize the democratic process. Meanwhile, the other most-conspicuous notable name mentioned at the debate was George the President -- George W. Bush, whom McCain made reference to in a line reminiscent of Lloyd Bentsen's famous rejoinder to Dan Quayle that "you are no Jack Kennedy."
It took weeks, months, but McCain and his people finally came up with a snappy and succinct way to distance the Republican candidate from the hugely, wildly, almost incomparably unpopular Bush and to undercut Obama's frequently repeated reference to "eight years of failed policies" that Obama says Bush propagated and McCain will continue.
"I'm not President Bush," said McCain, looking at Obama as he normally seems so loath to do. "If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."
It was the best line of the night, probably scripted, but political expert George Stephanopoulos on ABC News said in his postscript that McCain should have used it in the first debate, not the last. There were other ghosts of debates past, including one that seemed to go barely noticed: Obama wore a flag pin in his lapel, something he had been superficially chided for failing to do in the April Democratic debate moderated by Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson. McCain stood there with a naked lapel, nary a teeny-tiny flag in sight. Maybe he wore flag cuff links or a flag tie tack.
Post-debate pundits seemed to feel that McCain started out strongly but then settled back into old patterns and repetitious rhetoric that probably did nothing to persuade those elusive undecided voters to cast their ballots for McCain instead of Obama. But Obama brought no new tricks to the table, either, relying instead on old arguments, using 50-cent words such as "prioritize" and "reprioritize" that have to be turn-offs for many in the audience, and starting too many answers with "look" or "well, look" as in "Well, look . . . we expect political campaigns to be tough."
McCain may deserve kudos for cheekiest trick of the campaign when he twice tried to ridicule Obama for being eloquent. This seemed a new tactic: cast doubt on a candidate who seems suspiciously articulate, as if misusing words, fracturing syntax and bumbling through sentences were signs of honor. If that were the case, George W. Bush would be revered instead of lampooned nightly on the David Letterman show (where McCain is scheduled to make a notoriously delayed appearance tonight).
The tone and toughness of the campaigns themselves occupied too much of the time, but the subjects raised by moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News did seem to encourage Obama and McCain to speak directly to each other, to mix it up as other debate moderators have tried, and mostly failed, to get them to do. Obama claimed that no fewer than "100 percent" of McCain's TV commercials have been "negative," which sounded like an overstatement to understate it. McCain brought up tired old charges against Obama of being pals with '60s radical William Ayers even though those claims have been shot down time and time again by the Obama campaign.
Without mentioning GOP vice presidential candidate and famous Alaskan hockey mom Sarah Palin by name, Obama referred to McCain's "running mate" and the raucous rallies at which she has spoken, with Obama looking askance at rally rowdies who shouted out "terrorist" when Obama's name was mentioned and even the unnerving and obscene "Kill him!" McCain got huffy, as he does with barely a moment's notice, and said he was "proud of the people who come to our rallies." Obama said it was incumbent on the candidates to "disagree without being disagreeable" and to avoid characterizing each other "as bad people."
Schieffer probably did the best job of any debate moderator in keeping the candidates from wandering off point and getting them to answer the questions he asked, though both candidates tried their darnedest to speechify rather than improvise something fresh and new.
On CNN after the debate, from among the roiling mob of commentators assembled for analysis (twice as many as were probably needed), Anderson Cooper wisely noted that people who watched the debate on the cable-news network or on another channel that relied heavily on a split screen -- Obama on the left, McCain on the right, visibly reacting to each other's allegations -- probably had a different impression, especially of McCain, than those who saw the debate as a series of single shots of each candidate.
On the split screen, viewers could see Obama laughing at charges made by McCain, a reaction that did seem to diminish the charges. Viewers also could see McCain looking somehow inflated and aloof. Sometimes he struck such a lofty pose that he could have been posing for a spot on Mount Rushmore. Other times, he looked as though he might explode.
"The reaction shots were killing McCain," said Democrat Paul Begala on CNN. "He looked like Grumpy McNasty again." In less risible language, commentator David Gergen agreed: "He looked angry. It was almost an exercise in anger management for him" as he struggled "to contain himself" while "Obama maintained his cool."
NBC News employed the tired and rarely helpful gimmick of bringing in a focus group of supposedly ordinary Americans to watch the debate and then react, with Ann Curry padding her part as she questioned the respondents. There were only six, a pretty paltry sample, but one woman (from Potomac Falls) said of the Republican candidate, "McCain's temperament is scary to me."
She could have been a Democrat repeating what has been one of the party's operative mantras of the campaign, part of a concerted attempt to portray McCain as a potentially dangerous hothead. Or the woman may have been honestly expressing what is a common concern among some voters.
McCain repeated his complaint that the candidates participated in debates instead of "town meetings" and said that by now, he and Obama could have starred in 10 town meetings together. There was an obvious irony in that, since McCain's performance at the one debate with a town-meeting format was among his poorest. Last night's, at least, was a step up -- but most likely the proverbial too little, too late.
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Pool Photo By Gary Hershorn Via Getty Images; Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain shared a desk, but not many views, at last night's debate.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
October 16, 2008 Thursday
Every Edition
At Height of Election Season, a Full Haul of Blog Items
BYLINE: Virginia Notebook
SECTION: EXTRAS; Pg. PW15
This week's Notebook is a compilation of items from The Washington Post's "Virginia Politics" blog. To get your fix throughout the week, check out http://blog.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics or http://www.washingtonpost.com/vablog.
Gilmore Signs Pledge Against Earmarks
Former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), known for his opposition to higher taxes and earmarks, praised U.S. Senate candidate James S. Gilmore III in a conference call with Virginia reporters Tuesday.
Armey said the popularity of earmarks in Congress is "so far out of control" that only with determined opposition can members halt them.
In recent weeks, Gilmore, a former governor, has come out against the $700 billion federal economic rescue package and earmarks. He signed a "no earmarks" pledge this week.
Gilmore said that he opposed the bailout bill partly because it was filled with earmarks, including money for rum manufacturers and a company that makes wooden arrows. He said the practice of securing earmarks is open to "fraud and abuse."
Armey is chairman of FreedomWorks, a group dedicated to "lower taxes, less government and more freedom."
Gilmore faces former governor Mark R. Warner (D) for the Senate seat being vacated by the retiring John W. Warner (R).
-- ANITA KUMAR
Economic Crisis Prompts New Ads From Warner
Former governor Mark R. Warner will begin broadcasting new radio and television ads this week in his Senate race against former governor James S. Gilmore III.
The 30-second TV ad, called "Fresh Approach," features Warner discussing the nation's economic crisis. A 60-second version will be broadcast on radio statewide.
"For too long, there were too many people both in Washington and on Wall Street asleep at the switch," Warner says in the ad. "We need a fresh approach where we don't allow CEOs on Wall Street to walk away with millions of dollars while their companies go into the ditch. We've got to have leaders in Washington who put our country's interest first, not partisanship. That's what I'll do if you send me to Washington."
-- ANITA KUMAR
Endorsement of Obama Could Backfire in Va.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence announced Monday that it is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
"Senators Obama and [Joseph] Biden know that we make it too easy for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons in this country," Brady President Paul Helmke said in a statement. "They know that our weak gun laws have too many loopholes, which lead to over 30,000 deaths and 70,000 injuries from guns every year."
But in a state such as Virginia, which is home to the National Rifle Association and more than 1 million hunters, the endorsement carries considerable risk. The NRA, which has endorsed GOP nominee John McCain, is already running ads in Virginia noting that Obama once supported a ban on handguns in Chicago.
And if Obama (D-Ill.) has made any gains in rural Virginia, it will be tempting for Republicans to use the Brady Campaign endorsement to undercut him on the gun issue.
According to the Associated Press, Obama supported a ban on all forms of semiautomatic weapons and other restrictions on firearms when he was in the Illinois legislature. Obama now says he is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and would not, as president, seek to interfere with an individual's right to own a gun for hunting and self-protection.
-- TIM CRAIG
Remark on Bin Laden Rattles Republican Unity
Donald Scoggins, a prominent African American Republican in Prince William County, condemned Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick on Monday for comparing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to Osama bin Laden.
Scoggins said that he's been involved in the Republican Party for 40 years and that Frederick's remarks are "totally unacceptable." Scoggins once headed Republicans for Black Empowerment, which sought to recruit more African American Republicans to run for office.
"At this point in time, not just in Virginia, but all over, there needs to be a lowering of the decibel of hatred, and that was very much uncalled for," said Scoggins, who has been in touch with other GOP activists and leaders to discuss Frederick's remarks. "For him to equate [Obama] with someone as vile and destructive as bin Laden is just very much beyond the pale."
Scoggins said Frederick's message runs counter to the platform he ran on this summer during his campaign to oust former lieutenant governor John H. Hager as party chairman. Frederick, who is Hispanic, vowed he would make the party more inclusive.
Scoggins said Frederick instead appears to be focused on "appealing to a shrinking base."
"He can't get any more out of the base, so what he is doing is counterproductive," Scoggins said.
Scoggins said he has never supported a Democratic presidential candidate. But he is not sure how he will vote this year.
"I am going to figure out who will be the best person for the country," Scoggins said. "With the kind of talk Frederick did, that does not help blacks who would like to support McCain."
Frederick said he was making a joke. Chuck Smith, an African American who used to be chairman of the Virginia Beach Republican Party, rose to Frederick's defense.
"It was an inappropriate statement and he shouldn't have made it, but was he calling Obama a terrorist? No," Smith said. "Was he saying black people are terrorists? No."
Smith added: "We as Republicans need to stand our ground and get away from the sense that if we attack Obama it is insensitive to the African American community. Obama is fair game for attacks. What Jeff was saying is his association with William Ayers is a basis from which he can be attacked."
-- TIM CRAIG
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
DISTRIBUTION: Prince William County
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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October 16, 2008 Thursday
Regional Edition
Obama Turns to State's Leading Democrats;
Campaign Wants Kaine, Warner, Webb to Appear in Ads to Capitalize on Popularity
BYLINE: Anita Kumar; Washington Post Staff Writer
DATELINE: RICHMOND, Oct. 15
Sen. Barack Obama is asking the state's top three Democrats to appear in advertisements for him in the final weeks of the presidential race as he competes with Sen. John McCain in the battleground of Virginia.
Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) has recorded a radio ad for Obama (D-Ill.) that began airing in parts of the state this week.
Obama's campaign expects to ask Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) and former governor Mark R. Warner, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, to do the same.
"We're looking to involve all three top Democrats in Virginia," said Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for Obama in Virginia.
Campaign officials hope the three men, well known and popular with different populations in different parts of the state, will send a signal to Virginians that they can trust Obama.
Kaine, a national campaign co-chairman who was on Obama's short list as a vice presidential running mate, said Wednesday that he was filmed for a potential ad in August at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
"I have cut a lot of footage for Senator Obama in Denver that I gave them all-purpose authority to use how they see fit," Kaine said.
Warner, who is depicting himself as a bipartisan leader in his campaign against former governor James S. Gilmore III (R), has not committed to appear in an ad.
"We are talking daily with the Obama folks about ways we can be helpful in the final three weeks of this campaign," said Kevin Hall, a Warner spokesman.
Webb, Kaine and Warner have been part of a Democratic resurgence in Virginia, winning three statewide races this decade.
No Democratic presidential candidate has carried Virginia since 1964, but recent polls show Obama and Republican nominee McCain (Ariz.) locked in an extremely competitive race. A Washington Post-ABC News poll late last month indicated that Virginia's likely voters are divided 49 percent for Obama and 46 percent for McCain.
This year, strategists from both parties say Virginia could be critical to capturing the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House. Virginians do not register by party, and many have been known to split their tickets.
Obama will make his seventh trip to Virginia since he secured his party's nomination when he holds a rally in Roanoke on Friday. McCain will hold his third campaign event in the state, visiting Prince William County on Saturday.
Webb will campaign for Obama on Thursday in southwest Virginia, with rallies planned for Bristol, Marion, Pulaski and Blacksburg. He also will appear with Obama on Friday in Roanoke.
In his radio ad, billed as an "important message to Virginia sportsmen and working families," Webb, a Marine Corps veteran and member of the National Rifle Association, recounts how his dad gave him his first rifle when he was 8 years old.
"I know my friend Barack Obama will protect our Second Amendment rights," Webb says in the ad. "So don't be misled about Barack Obama in the closing days of this campaign. . . . I trust him to protect our right to keep and bear arms."
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post; Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, shown with Barack Obama at a forum in Chester, Va., in August, has cut footage for Obama's staffers "to use how they see fit."
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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October 16, 2008 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
Aggressive Underdog vs. Cool Counterpuncher
BYLINE: Dan Balz; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
DATELINE: HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., Oct. 15
John McCain threw everything he could at Barack Obama here Wednesday night.
Down in the polls and with time running out, McCain took every opportunity to put Obama on the defensive, looking to turn a race that has been slipping away from him back in his direction in the final 20 days. It was what many of his supporters, including running mate Sarah Palin, had urged him to do, and McCain responded with vigor and seeming enthusiasm.
Obama was repeatedly forced Wednesday night to explain himself. But he did not lose his cool under his opponent's persistent criticism, parrying time and again with measured explanations designed to take the sting out of McCain's charges with voters who may still be making up their minds.
This debate may have been McCain's strongest performance of the three, but it was also an example of how Obama has used the encounters to try to show that he has not only the knowledge of the issues but also the temperament and the judgment that voters are looking for in a successor to President Bush.
In the end, given the overwhelming desire for change in the country, that may be enough to keep him in the driver's seat. McCain will have to continue to press his case relentlessly in the final days to change the shape of the campaign.
In the past two weeks, the race has taken an ugly turn -- whether in television commercials, the remarks of the candidates, or, in particular, the comments of their surrogates or supporters. On Wednesday night, much of that came into play in the hall at Hofstra University, where CBS's Bob Schieffer guided the two candidates into a direct confrontation over what has been said.
That produced a debate that not only dealt with the deep philosophical differences between Obama and McCain on the economy, government, health care and energy but also brought to the table Obama's association with 1960s radical William Ayers and a little-known group called ACORN that has been accused of voter fraud in several states.
McCain accused Obama of failing to repudiate some of the worst attacks leveled by Democratic allies, pointing to comments over the weekend by Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who compared McCain to segregationist George Wallace and warned that McCain and Palin were empowering the kind of sentiment that led to violence during the civil rights movement.
"Senator Obama," he said, "you didn't repudiate those remarks. Every time there's been an out-of-bounds remark made by a Republican, no matter where they are, I have repudiated them."
Obama said the comparison with Wallace was inappropriate, but he also fired back at McCain, saying that at GOP rallies, "when my name came up, things like 'terrorist' and 'kill him,' . . . your running mate didn't mention, didn't stop, didn't say, 'Hold on a second -- that's kind of out of line.' "
Obama challenged the suggestion that he had spent time "palling around with terrorists," opening up a discussion of Ayers, who was a member of the Weather Underground, a radical group that carried out domestic bombings during the Vietnam War era.
"He engaged in despicable acts with a radical domestic group," Obama said. "I have roundly condemned those acts. Ten years ago he served and I served on a school reform board that was funded by one of Ronald Reagan's former ambassadors and close friends, Mr. [Walter] Annenberg. . . . Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign. He has never been involved in this campaign. And he will not advise me in the White House."
(Annenberg was actually an ambassador under President Richard M. Nixon.)
There were other such moments. McCain at one point pressed Obama to explain why he had voted against a measure in the Illinois legislature that he said would have denied medical treatment to a child born of a failed abortion. "It's not true," Obama countered, arguing that another law already assured such treatment and that the measure he opposed was also opposed by the Illinois Medical Society.
McCain hit Obama for breaking his pledge to take public funding for the general election and accused him of spending more on negative ads than any candidate in history. Obama pointed to polls showing that many more Americans believe that McCain has run a primarily negative campaign, and he claimed that 100 percent of McCain's ads have been negative.
Despite these kinds of exchanges, the debate once again highlighted sharp differences between the two on the issues that Americans care most about. McCain, more systematically than in the past, set out to portray Obama as a Democrat who believes deeply in bigger and more intrusive government, and he invoked a plumber named Joe Wurzelbacher, whom Obama had encountered on the campaign trail, as his foil to hammer Obama's policies.
At times, it seemed as if the entire campaign came down to which candidate could win over Wurzelbacher's vote. "What you want to do to Joe the Plumber and millions more like him is have their taxes increased and not be able to realize the American dream of owning their own business," McCain asserted.
When McCain charged that Obama's health plan would force Wurzelbacher to provide insurance for his workers or pay a fine, and demanded that his rival say how much the fine would be, Obama looked into the camera and said: "Joe, too, if you're out there. Here's your fine -- zero."
Democratic strategists watching from afar said they thought Obama had done what he needed to do by staying calm in the face of McCain's criticisms, focusing on an economic message aimed squarely at the middle class and once again using the 90 minutes to project reassurance.
Republican analysts watching the debate said McCain had done what he could to change the dynamic of the election. But they did not underestimate the size of the hill McCain must climb.
Even before Wednesday's debate, it was clear that Obama was making progress in overcoming the doubts about his candidacy. The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, taken over the weekend, showed that by 54 percent to 40 percent, voters see Obama as the stronger leader. In June, as the general election was beginning, it was McCain by 47 percent to 44 percent.
In June, the public was evenly divided -- 48 percent to 48 percent -- on whether Obama had the experience to be president. Today it's 54 percent yes, 45 percent no. That's not an overwhelming vote of confidence, but in a divided country at the height of what has turned into an intensely partisan contest, it is a sign that Obama has made progress with doubters.
More remarkably, in the latest poll, McCain is seen as a riskier candidate than Obama. On that question, 50 percent of voters said the Republican nominee would be a risky choice and 50 percent said he wouldn't. For Obama, it was 55 percent saying he was a safe choice and 45 percent saying he would be a risky pick. In June, McCain was 16 points positive on that question, Obama two points positive.
Republican strategist Tom Rath said McCain showed in the debate how he thinks he must run now that he is behind. "He forced Obama regularly to defend his positions," he said. "I think it shows where the McCain team thinks they must go, which is back to the base, back to the Bush map of 2004. Over and over again McCain hit hardest on base issues and forced the discussion to that segment of the electorate which holds his best -- and maybe only -- chance of winning."
But Democratic strategist Tad Devine said that Obama still has the edge and that his huge financial advantage will now prove difficult to overcome. "This was the closest debate of the three," he said. "The sit-down was better for McCain than the two previous formats. But Obama still got the better of it, since he was not tripped up by McCain, and throughout did better at getting his core message across. . . . I think the voters will now settle in, with the advantage to Obama."
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post; Supporters of John McCain watch the presidential debate at Porter's Dining Saloon in Dupont Circle.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
October 16, 2008 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
In Targeting Online Ads, Campaigns Ask: Who's Searching for What?
BYLINE: Peter Whoriskey; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
A day after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin winked playfully during the recent vice presidential debate, the number of people typing "palin wink" into the Google search engine surged, rising to No. 3 on the service's list of newly popular queries.
There, the phrase caught the attention of Eric Frenchman, an expert hired by the McCain-Palin campaign to develop online advertising.
"I might use it," said Frenchman, who describes himself as a "voracious" reader of Google search statistics.
Discovering how people search for candidate information -- exactly what words they type into a search box -- is a budding science that is paying big dividends in the presidential race between Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
As never before, the campaigns are buying ads to run along with the results of specific search queries on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Live. Because the ads catch people just as they are searching for information and because they can be tailored to the users' immediate interest -- the phrases they type in -- both campaigns are spending millions on the method, which is relatively new in politics.
There is an art to choosing the keyword phrases for which to buy advertising -- among them are "water conserving faucets," "inheritance tax" and "fuel calculator." And it requires avid monitoring to keep up with evolving popular interests and campaign messages.
Many of the hundreds of keywords chosen by the campaigns for advertising are obvious -- simple variations of the candidates' names.
Others reveal what kinds of issues the campaigns are trying to engage voters on: "gas prices," "chavez" and "global warming" have been used, according to AdGooroo and SpyFu, firms that track search-term advertising.
But others stray far from policies: "Lipstick," "hanoi hilton," "obama muslim" and "hot wife" also have been purchased, according to the ad trackers.
Federal election records show that the Obama campaign has spent $5 million on Google, although some of that went for traditional display ads. The McCain campaign's ad expenditures are harder to track, but based on the volume of its online advertising, its tally reaches into the millions as well.
"The beautiful thing about search advertising is that it's people looking for information about you," Frenchman, of Connell Donatelli in Alexandria, said last week. "Right now I'm seeing 'palin wink' on Google Trends. I might use it. But first I would see what type of traffic is on it and what kind of discussion is around it. If I think it's positive, I would just dump it in with the rest of the words we're buying."
Anticipating the public's curiosity is a tricky business, however. To judge by the top political search terms, popular interests more often dwell on matters of personality, celebrity and gossip than on policy.
The Web research firm Hitwise, which samples data from 10 million U.S. Internet users, has ranked, for each candidate, the top 25 search phrases that include the candidate's last name.
For example, ranking among the top 25 search terms that include the word "palin" are "bristol palin," "sarah palin pictures," "sarah palin photos," "sarah palin hot photos" "sarah palin hot" "sarah palin affair" "snl video of palin clinton" "sarah palin swimsuit" "sarah palin pics" "palin affair" "sarah palin scandal" "sarah palin bikini" and "sarah palin beauty pageant."
Among the top 25 search phrases that include "mccain" are "how old is cindy mccain," "cindy mccain age" and a handful about the candidate's first wife and their children.
Among those for Obama are "obama jokes" "obama antichrist" "obama muslim" and "obama birth certificate."
"You have to go pretty far down these lists to find issues," said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise and author of "Click," a book about what people search for online.
The superficiality of the inquiries regarding Palin is striking, Tancer said, and reflects the newness of her celebrity.
"Sarah Palin is the new Paris Hilton," he said.
The McCain campaign has purchased thousands of keyword phrases. The Obama campaign appears to have bought fewer, but the search terms it is known to have purchased reach at least into the hundreds.
According to AdGooroo and SpyFu, among the thousands of terms purchased to send people to McCain Web sites are:
· "Hot wife," which linked to a biography of Cindy McCain.
· "Sarah palin pictures," which directed users to official campaign pictures.
· "Chavez" and "castro," which linked to a page advertising McCain's foreign policy.
· "Katrina" "against abortion," "global warming," "environmental pollution" and "gas prices," all tied to policy issues.
Among the search phrases that have been purchased to direct people to Obama Web sites are:
· "Barack muslim," which linked to a page informing viewers that he is not a Muslim.
· "Diane von furstenberg," which linked to a site selling Obama clothing.
· "Clinton" and "edwards," an effort to reach voters for his Democratic rivals in the primaries.
"Our search advertising accounts for a large portion of our new media strategy," said Nick Shapiro, an Obama spokesman.
Search ads also allow highly targeted negative advertising, and it can be done without inviting the level of scrutiny that accompanies print or television advertising.
For example, a voter searching for online information about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) last month, and who entered "hillary" in the search box, might have seen this ad pop up.
Is Obama The One?
Barack Obama
A Worldwide Sensation
But Is He Ready to Lead?
Learn More. JohnMcCain.com/TheOne
The ad, discovered by AdGooroo, directed viewers to a video stream on the McCain site that mocks Obama's lofty rhetoric and suggests that he sees himself as a religious figure -- there is even a clip of Charlton Heston as Moses parting the waters.
"It shall be known that in 2008 the world will be blessed," the announcer says, as clips of Obama float by. "They will call him 'The One.' He has anointed himself. . . . He can do no wrong. . . . Barack Obama may be the one, but is he ready to lead?"
"Our job as marketers is give them relevant advertising," Frenchman said.
Likewise, the Obama campaign ran an array of attack ads last month, targeting McCain's assertion of being a maverick ("Is McCain a Maverick? Nope.") and his links to lobbyists "McCain's Trip to Bermuda/Learn About the Lobbyists That Gave/McCain $50,000," among other issues.
The Obama campaign recently bought the term "diabetes" and other related phrases. A person seeking information about the disease would have found this blurb from the campaign, according to AdGooroo:
Do You Have Diabetes?
You Might Not Be Covered Under John McCain's Health Plan. Learn More.
BarackObama.com/Diabetes
"Everyone Googles now," said Richard Stokes, president of AdGooroo. "It's an unprecedented method to reach out to an audience with information at the exact instant that they're looking for information."
Or, as Sara Holoubek, a consultant who recently moderated a panel in New York on search advertising and the campaigns, said: "This is the year the campaigns finally got search."
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; When the vice presidential debate made "palin wink" a popular search, a McCain staffer considered tying it to ads.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
October 16, 2008 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
Joe Again? Say It Ain't So.
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
DATELINE: HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., Oct. 15
Before Wednesday night's final presidential debate, the big question had been whether John McCain would hit Barack Obama with Bill Ayers. Instead, he hit him with Joe the Plumber.
Ayers, the "washed-up terrorist," as McCain called him, had but a bit role; the Republican nominee instead focused on a plumber from Toledo who fears that Obama will make him pay higher taxes.
"Senator Obama was out in Ohio and he had an encounter with a guy who's a plumber. His name is Joe Wurzelbacher," the Republican nominee said at the start of the debate. Turning to Obama, McCain leveled a severe accusation: "What you want to do to Joe the Plumber and millions more like him is have their taxes increased and not be able to realize the American dream of owning their own business."
"Is that what you want to do?" the moderator, CBS's Bob Schieffer, asked Obama.
"That's what Joe believes," McCain maintained.
Obama, the front-runner, suddenly found himself on the defensive on the Joe issue. He sought to clarify "the conversation I had with Joe the Plumber."
McCain would not yield. "Small-business people like Joe the Plumber are going to create jobs unless you take that money from him and spread the wealth around," he said.
Obama, still embattled on the Joe front, acknowledged that "my friend and supporter, Warren Buffett, for example, could afford to pay a little more in taxes."
"We're talking about Joe the Plumber!" McCain interjected.
An hour later, they were still turning Joe into a real-life version of "Swing Vote," the Kevin Costner film in which one man single-handedly decides the presidency.
The Joe maneuver was emblematic of McCain's tactics in the final debate: He answered critics' demands that he go after Obama, but he did it with apparent ambivalence.
The first two debates had been relatively bland affairs, and McCain's failure to raise serious doubts about Obama left him badly trailing his opponent just three weeks before the election. The pre-debate conversation all but assumed the election was over and Obama was the president-elect. The question wasn't so much whether McCain could turn things around, but whether he would choose to go down fighting (likely sacrificing his dignity along the way) or choose to lose quietly but honorably.
Last night, McCain finally went on the attack against Obama, but he had to be coaxed into it by Schieffer. "Senator McCain, your commercials have included words like 'disrespectful,' 'dangerous,' 'dishonorable,' 'he lied.' Your running mate said he 'palled around with terrorists,' " the moderator said. "Are each of you tonight willing to sit at this table and say to each other's face what your campaigns and the people in your campaigns have said about each other?"
With a bit more prodding, McCain made his much-anticipated Ayers attack. "Mr. Ayers -- I don't care about an old washed-up terrorist, but as Senator Clinton said in her debates with you, we need to know the full extent of that relationship," he ventured. "We need to know the full extent of Senator Obama's relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."
After a detailed defense by Obama, McCain pressed one more time. "You and Mr. Ayers, together, you sent $230,000 to ACORN," he charged. "And you launched your political campaign in Mr. Ayers's living room. . . . Senator Obama chooses to associate with a guy who in 2001 said that he wished he had have bombed more, and he had a long association with him. It's the fact that all the -- all of the details need to be known about Senator Obama's relationship with them and with ACORN and the American people will make a judgment.
"And my campaign is about getting this economy back on track," he added.
Obama chuckled. Schieffer moved on to another question -- and Ayers and ACORN, after a five-minute cameo, were gone.
In those five minutes, the Republican nominee became the man America had seen in his ads, whose slashing personal attacks on his opponent's character have, by most measures, done him more harm than good. Perhaps mindful of that, or perhaps set back by Obama's mild responses to his attacks, McCain, though delivering sharper jabs than he had in the earlier debates, was unwilling, or unable, to mount a sustained effort to undermine Obama's personal standing.
McCain quickly abandoned the personal line of attack for the more substantive but less cutting. "Senator Obama, your argument for standing up to the leaders of your party isn't very convincing," he said. And "Senator Obama . . . has never traveled south of our border." And Joe Biden "had this cockamamie idea about dividing Iraq into three countries."
Then, of course, there was Joe the Plumber. Some time after his first mention of Joe, McCain returned to the subject. "I've, I've talked to people like Joe the Plumber and tell him that I'm not going to spread his wealth around; I'm going to let him keep his wealth," he said. An hour after the first Joe mention, McCain reminded everybody that "my old buddy, Joe, Joe the Plumber, is out there" and would pay a fine under Obama's health plan. "I don't think that Joe right now wants to pay a fine," he said.
Obama appealed to Joe. "I'm happy to talk to you, Joe, too, if you're out there," he said. "Here's your fine -- zero. . . . In fact, Joe, if you want to do the right thing with your employees and you want to provide them health insurance, we'll give you a 50 percent credit."
"Joe, you're rich, congratulations," McCain said with sarcasm. McCain reminded the plumber that "Senator Obama wants government to do the job. I want, Joe, you to do the job."
Replied Obama: "All I want to do, if you've already got health care, is lower your costs. That includes you, Joe."
"Let's stop there," Schieffer recommended.
Is that okay with you, Joe?
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Jae C. Hong -- Associated Press; Barack Obama, face to face with plumber Joe Wurzelbacher in Ohio.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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October 16, 2008 Thursday
Immigrants hear mixed messages but little else
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: PAGE ONE; ISSUES '08; A01
Immigration ties politicians in knots.
Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama agree on the end goal - granting citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants - yet disagree about how to get there.
The public is even more conflicted, telling pollsters that they don't want to reward those who entered the U.S. illegally and don't want an increase in immigration, but do want a solution to the problem and are open to giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.
"Both presidential candidates are going to want to do it, and both are going to be challenged to get enough Republican support. But McCain's got an added challenge - he's going to be challenged to get enough Democratic support," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, which pushes for a broad agreement that backers call comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship.
An effort to solve all of the immigration problems at once collapsed in the Senate last year, defeated by a majority filibuster. Mr. Sharry and others who follow the issue say the next president will have to work to form a coalition that can do better.
Both top candidates are promising to try.
"I would make my first priority comprehensive immigration reform. We will pick up where we left off," Mr. McCain, a senator from Arizona with a long history of working on the issue, told Univision's Al Punto program this weekend.
Immigration is an emotional issue that goes to competing beliefs that the United States is a nation of immigrants, but also a nation of laws. Although it is a cliche, that view is still seen as a fundamental tenet.
Beneath the cover of that ambiguity, illegal immigration has exploded. The issue is another part of unfinished business that President Bush will leave to his successor.
The estimated population of illegal immigrants has grown from 8.4 million in 2000 to nearly 12 million this year, though new reports by both the Center for Immigration Studies and the Pew Hispanic Center indicate that the number has declined in the past year.
Pew did not elaborate as to why, but the Center for Immigration Studies said the timing of the drop suggests stepped-up enforcement at both the federal and local levels has helped. That boosts the argument of those who say illegal immigration can be controlled by attrition - tougher enforcement coupled with a no-amnesty policy.
Enforcement increased after Mr. Bush, Mr. McCain and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, failed the past two years to pass a bill combining border security, citizenship rights for illegal immigrants and a guest-worker program for future foreign workers.
Congress called for border fencing, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff began a series of high-profile workplace raids, and some states and localities took the lead in requiring employers to check employees' eligibility to work. Some localities also signed agreements with immigration authorities to allow their own police to enforce immigration laws.
The issue gained traction in the presidential primaries. Mr. McCain, considered the most liberal of Republican candidates on the issue, said immigration nearly cost him the nomination. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign suffered after she changed her position on whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to obtain driver's licenses in New York.
But, in the general election, the issue has all but disappeared.
Both major presidential candidates regularly raise the immigration issue when speaking to Hispanic audiences and have run brutal and misleading television commercials accusing the other of trying to scuttle comprehensive reform. But to English-speaking audiences, the issue is rarely mentioned and had not been raised in the first two presidential debates.
The two men have nearly identical voting records on immigration.
Both voted for the Secure Fence Act to build fencing on 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, and both voted for the 2006 and 2007 immigration bills.
But Mr. Obama has been consistent in his rhetoric, while Mr. McCain has not. He tells conservative audiences that his priority is border security but told Univision that it's a broad legalization bill.
Mr. Obama has criticized Mr. McCain for the inconsistency.
"It's time for a president who won't walk away from something as important as comprehensive reform when it becomes politically unpopular," Mr. Obama told the National Council of La Raza in July.
The two differ most on security, though.
Mr. Obama says border security must not be legislated in isolation but must be packaged with a broad bill. Hispanic rights groups fear that if security is done in isolation, they won't gain support for their priorities, such as a path to citizenship.
Mr. Obama also criticizes Homeland Security's stepped-up enforcement, calling raids ineffective.
In his recent Univision interview, Mr. McCain said he would not halt immigration raids.
"I can't tell you that we should stop rounding up people who have come to this country illegally, but I can tell you we will treat the whole issue with a humane and compassionate fashion," he said.
He has also said he won't tackle broader immigration, including legalization, until he proves to voters that the borders are secure. He says he will rely on border-state governors to certify security before proceeding.
Those who see legalization as amnesty fret that they have no choices in the election, while advocates of comprehensive reform disagree over who's more likely to get legislation enacted.
"McCain's border-security-first commitment, which he emphasized in the primaries, and he still says, though he couples with the need for comprehensive immigration reform, I think it means, to be honest, it's going to be much harder to get immigration reform enacted," Mr. Sharry said. "If you're interested in comprehensive immigration reform, Obama has a clear path to it sooner and, in the meantime, will not continue the Chertoff policies of raids."
But Immigration Daily, an e-mail newsletter from Immigration Law Weekly, wants to see a legalization bill and said that probably means electing Mr. McCain.
"This is the issue on which he is most likely to stab his party's anti-immigrationist wing in the back both in his political interests and due to his own convictions (Mr. McCain had to fight his party's anti-immigrationists tooth and nail during the Republican primaries). We expect to see almost all of the original McCain-Kennedy bill become law during the first six months of a McCain presidency," the newsletter publishers said.
"The combination of a powerful Democratic majority in Congress with Mr. McCain as president offers the best hope for speedily obtaining desperately needed immigration benefits."
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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October 16, 2008 Thursday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE POLITICS; A06
THE NEW WEST
"Forget the traditionally conservative dress of business Washington," Reid Wilson writes at www.realclear politics.com.
"Put away the three-piece suits and Brooks Brothers ties. Instead, break in a new pair of cowboy boots, put on a bolo tie and a Stetson hat. As America's Intermountain West grows at rates much higher than the rest of the country, more gun-toting, cattle-rustling social and fiscal libertarians will head east of the Rockies to join Congress," Mr. Wilson said.
"But those new members of Congress are more likely to caucus with Democrats than they are to side with Republicans in what may be one of the most dramatic geographic shifts in the coming decade. And though the transition away from the GOP has not been as pronounced as that which has taken place in the Northeast, the move has already begun.
"The 1990s were a good decade to be a Republican west of the Rockies. But since President Bush won the White House, Democrats have seen a marked improvement in their Western fortunes. Beginning in 2000, Democrats have picked up three Senate seats, five governor's mansions and 12 House seats in states in the Mountain or Pacific time zones.
"By contrast, Republicans have picked up just one Senate seat, John Ensign's, and one governor's mansion, when California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won a recall election in 2003."
SPREAD THE WEALTH
"When Barack Obama responded to the Ohio plumber who didn't want his taxes raised that Obama wanted to 'spread the wealth around,' I wanted to tell him to spread his own wealth around. It was in any event a rare moment of candor on the part of Sen. Obama," Scott Johnson writes at www.powerlineblog.com.
"Obama all but told the plumber that his wealth should be seized in the name of equity. The encounter played out one of the old themes of democratic politics: the appeal to the many to take from the few. It's traditionally an easy sell in democratic regimes," Mr. Johnson said.
"Despite Obama's implication to the contrary, however, it doesn't represent much in the way of change. According to the most recent (2006) data released by the IRS, the top 1 percent of filers paid nearly 40 percent of all income taxes; the top 5 percent paid 60 percent of all income taxes. The bottom 50 percent paid virtually no income taxes (3 percent of all income taxes paid).
"The personal income tax, the federal government's main source of revenue, is collected overwhelmingly from a relative handful of Americans."
TIME DELAY
The Republican National Committee is taking aim at Barack Obama over the Illinois senator's half-hour ad buy that will delay the start of a World Series game by 18 minutes, CNN reported Wednesday.
"It's unfortunate that the World Series' first pitch is being delayed for Obama's political pitch," RNC spokesman Alex Conant said. "Not only is Obama putting politics before principle, he's putting it before our national pastime."
Major League Baseball has agreed to a request from Fox to delay from 8:20 p.m. EDT to 8:38 the start time of the World Series Game 6 (if necessary) so the network can air the 30-minute Obama spot, a Fox spokesman confirms to CNN. The Illinois senator has also bought similar time on CBS and NBC, set to begin at 8 p.m.
"Fox will accommodate Senator Obama's desire to communicate with voters in this ... format," Fox spokesman Scott Gorgin said "We are pleased that Major League Baseball has agreed to delay the first pitch of World Series Game 6 for a few minutes in order for Fox to carry his program on October 29."
It's the first time a presidential candidate has bought that length of airtime on network television since Ross Perot purchased several 30-minute blocs in 1992.
AN EMBARRASSMENT
"As Obama lengthens his lead, the Republicans are praying that the election becomes close enough for the Democrats to steal," Dick Morris writes in the Hill newspaper.
"But, meanwhile, ACORN, the radical community group, is becoming an embarrassment for Obama. It is not as if its shenanigans are likely to tip the result, with the Democrats so far ahead, but as they are raided by the FBI in state after state (11 so far) they are becoming identified as the electoral equivalent of Greenpeace - extremists who will stop at nothing to get their way," Mr. Morris said.
"What makes ACORN particularly embarrassing for Obama is that he used to be one of them. He served as general counsel for ACORN in Illinois, channeled millions to the organization from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (whose funds he distributed), and has lately spent $800,000 of his campaign money to subsidize the group's activities. For this emolument, ACORN has registered voters 15 times over, canvassed the graveyards for votes and prepared to commit electoral fraud on a massive scale."
While such Obama albatrosses as William Ayres and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright can lie low until November, ACORN cannot.
"But, as Election Day approaches and early balloting proceeds in many states, ACORN's tactics will get more and more media attention. As election officials discover ACORN frauds, the association will become more injurious to Obama, particularly when it is his own campaign that is funding many of the fraudulent activities. At the very least, the negative publicity ACORN will attract will paint Obama as a radical with questionable judgment. At the most, it might cause voters to wonder if he is not involved in electoral fraud."
AD SWITCH
The Republican National Committee is halting presidential ads in Wisconsin and Maine, turning much of its attention to usually Republican states where Republican nominee Sen. John McCain shows signs of faltering.
The party's independent ad operation is doubling its budget to about $10 million and focusing on crucial states such as Colorado, Missouri, Indiana and Virginia where Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has established a foothold, according to a Republican strategist familiar with presidential ad placements.
Florida and North Carolina have also been in the RNC ad mix. Pennsylvania is the only Democratic-leaning swing state apparently left in the party's ad campaign.
The shift in advertising resources suggests that the RNC has decided to focus on defending reliably Republican-voting states against Mr. Obama's onslaught of advertising, the Associated Press reports. Flush with money, Mr. Obama is outspending the joint efforts of the Republican Party and the McCain campaign by more than 2-to-1.
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
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October 16, 2008 Thursday
BYLINE: THE WASHINGTON TIMES
John McCain's come-from-behind bid for the presidency is being damaged by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as the McCain-Feingold bill.
The workings of McCain-Feingold and the Democratic Party's huge fund-raising advantage have left Mr. McCain debilitatingly dependent on the $85 million in taxpayer financing he received last month. The Politico newspaper reported yesterday that Mr. Obama is outspending the combined McCain campaign/Republican National Committee campaign effort by as much as 8-1, and that probably understates Mr. McCain's disadvantage.
In the first three weeks of September, Mr. Obama ran 1,342 television commercials in the Washington media market, which includes Northern Virginia, a hotly contested area of a battleground state. By comparison, Mr. McCain ran just eight - an advantage of more than 160-1 in Mr. Obama's favor. Unsurprisingly, Mr. McCain now finds himself in the embarrassing position of searching for loopholes that would enable him to circumvent the very legislative Frankenstein he created.
McCain-Feingold limits donations to no more than $2,300 for individuals contributing to a candidate's primary election campaign and another $2,300 for the general election. But arguably the most disturbing aspect of the bill was its prohibition on the ability of labor unions and corporations from running television advertisements within 30 days of a primary and 60 days of a general election - in other words, when it mattered most.
Back in 2001 and 2002, when McCain-Feingold was being debated, this editorial page opposed the bill as an unconstitutional abridgement of Americans' First Amendment freedoms. Mr. McCain joined many Democrats in dismissing these concerns, arguing that his legislation was necessary to help "clean up" politics and prevent special-interest groups (i.e., the American public) from exerting undue influence on elected officials.
In 2004, Wisconsin Right to Life produced a number of television ads urging state residents to contact Wisconsin's Democratic senators, Russ Feingold, (Mr. McCain's partner and cosponsor of the 2002 bill) and Herb Kohl, and tell them not to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominations. But that posed a legal problem for the right-to life group: Mr. Feingold was running for re-election, and its proposed ad was declared an illegal "electioneering communication" because it referred to a candidate for federal office, Mr. Feingold. As columnist George Will pointed out, this would have been the perfect time for Mr. McCain to try to back away from the precipice and say that he never had any intention to ban such political speech. Alternatively, Mr. McCain could have remained silent. Instead, Mr. McCain filed a Supreme Court brief saying that this was exactly what he had in mind. The Supreme Court ruled against Wisconsin Right to Life, upholding the most onerous, intrusive interpretation of the law.
Four years later, as his campaign's financial situation has become increasingly dire, Mr. McCain has apparently developed a very different perspective on the bill he touts as one of his greatest legislative achievements. Reporter Jim McElhatton of The Washington Times wrote in May about the fact that Mr. McCain was appearing at fundraisers across the United States where donors could legally donate up to $70,000 each to help him win the presidency through a group set up jointly by his campaign and the Republican Party. But, financially at least, he remains at a huge financial disadvantage to Mr. Obama and the Democrats. For all of his talk about the virtues of public financing, Mr. Obama - understanding full well that he could out-fundraise Mr. McCain - decided to forego public financing of his own campaign. And Mr. McCain, by opting for public financing, lost a golden opportunity to benefit from the popularity of his running mate, Sarah Palin.
Mr. McCain's political situation right now should be a cautionary tale to all politicians who use the heavy hand of government to curtail American liberties.
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
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October 16, 2008 Thursday
Other numbers need attention
BYLINE: By William R. Hawkins, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Politicians, economists and the public were staggered by the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, a sum substantially larger than the $482 billion 2009 federal budget deficit projected before the crisis. It has been reported that retirement plans have lost $2 trillion during the last 15 months of a declining stock market.
If these numbers appear daunting, consider that the United States has already had to borrow internationally to fund trade deficits larger than the bailout each of the last three years, for a total of $2.7 trillion. And the trade deficit measures a direct impact on the real economy that has cost millions of jobs.
The issue that dominated the news prior to the financial meltdown was oil. In his ad campaign, T. Boone Pickens calls the surge in oil prices "the largest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind" and urges a policy of energy independence.
But the transfer of wealth from the United States to foreign exporters has not been mainly the result of imported oil. During the period 1997-2007, the United States ran a cumulative trade deficit of nearly $5 trillion. Just under $1.3 trillion of that was for oil (and half of that was during 2005-07). The U.S. trade deficit with China, at just more than $1.4 trillion for this period, was more than the oil deficit. The United States will have to pursue import substitution for manufactured goods as well as for oil if America is to balance its trade and pay its bills in the world economy.
Unfortunately, trade has figured only marginally in the presidential campaign. Sen. John McCain is a "free trader" whose ideological blinders keep him from seeing the same financial dangers that he saw threatening Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when he co-sponsored reform legislation in 2005. The Republican Party platform adopted in St. Paul did, however, pledge "to enforce trade laws and safeguard our workers, businesses and farmers from unfair trade." Sen. Barack Obama has talked about adding labor and environmental standards to trade agreements. He co-sponsored S. 796, The Fair Currency Act of 2007, that would define the currency manipulation used by China as an illegal subsidy against which countervailing duties could be levied. The idea of renegotiating the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement has come up, but America's main trade rivals are in Asia and Europe.
There is an anomaly in the international tax system which, if corrected, would reduce both the budget and trade deficits. Most of America's major trading partners raise a substantial amount of their tax revenues from what is called a Value Added Tax (VAT). This is a tax levied at each step of the production process and ultimately incorporated into the final price of the product to the consumer. However, if the product is exported, the VAT is rebated. On imports, the VAT is imposed like a tariff. Indeed, as tariffs have come down under international agreements, VAT rates have gone up to replace them, and now average about 16 percent. The U.S. does not use the VAT. Its imports face these overseas border taxes, while its exporters do not receive any rebates on the U.S. taxes they had to pay. American firms thus face rivals whose tax rebates lower their costs, and whose exports then come into America tax-free.
The total disadvantage to American business amounted to some $428 billion in 2006, the latest year for which data are available. Congress tried to offset this disadvantage with the Foreign Sales Corp. tax break, but the European Union had the World Trade Organization declare the U.S. law to be illegal. The VAT is explicitly allowed under the WTO. Congress called for a revision of the WTO rules in regard to border tax adjustments in the Trade Act of 2002, but no progress has been made on this negotiating objective in the current Doha Round of talks.
To have any diplomatic leverage, the United States must stake out a strong position by its own actions. Bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the House (H.R. 2600) that would authorize the imposition of a tax on imports from any country that employs indirect taxes like the VAT and then grants rebates to its exporters. The revenue would be used to fund compensatory payments to eligible U.S. exporters to neutralize the discriminatory VAT tariff effect. These border adjustment measures would be implemented if talks at the WTO fail to remedy the problem.
Congress has been consumed by the current financial crisis, but the trade deficit will continue to impose costs on the national economy until addressed. Whoever wins the White House will have to look at the VAT border problem and other unfair foreign practices that put American firms at a disadvantage, if the fundamentals of the real economy are to recover.
William R. Hawkins is a consultant specializing in defense and trade issues.
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
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The Associated Press State & Local Wire
October 16, 2008 Thursday 1:04 AM GMT
CNN Poll: Obama leads McCain in Virginia
BYLINE: By BOB LEWIS, AP Political Writer
Democrat Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain in the presidential race in the battleground state of Virginia, according to a poll published Wednesday.
The CNN/Time magazine poll of 698 likely Virginia voters shows that 53 percent supported Obama and 43 percent backed McCain. Four percent either supported neither candidate or were undecided.
The results are outside the poll's margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. It was conducted by phone Saturday through Tuesday by Opinion Research Corp.
Most polls have shown McCain and Obama in a close race in Virginia with the results generally within the margin of error.
Republicans have won the past 10 presidential races in Virginia. Democrats have won back-to-back governor's elections and Democrat Jim Webb narrowly upset Republican Sen. George Allen in 2006. In February, Obama won the state presidential primary in a rout, defeating Hillary Clinton by nearly a 2-to-1 ratio.
Even so, a 10-point victory by a Democrat this fall is unlikely, said Virginia Commonwealth University political science professor Robert D. Holsworth.
"The maximum Democrats have achieved has been 6 points, and it's hard to believe that is going to happen in Virginia," Holsworth said.
The last time a Democrat exceeded that margin of victory in Virginia was 1988 when former Gov. Chuck Robb won his first U.S. Senate term over Republican Maurice Dawkins.
For the first time in decades, however, Virginians are watching the final phase of a presidential race fought out in full fury on their home turf.
Obama or his running mate, Joe Biden, have visited the state eight times since June, and Obama is due back in Roanoke on Friday. McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, have campaigned here twice over that time, and McCain is due back in Woodbridge on Saturday.
Obama, however, has used his fundraising advantage to saturate Virginia's most populous area, the Washington, D.C., suburbs, with television advertising. He has opened more than 40 campaign offices statewide.
His campaign has aggressively sought to register new voters, particular young people. That effort contributed substantially to 436,000 new voter registrations since Jan. 1, boosting Virginia's voter rolls past 5 million for the first time, the State Board of Elections reported Wednesday.
But the Democrats' new, highly organized cadre of campaign workers statewide faces a Republican organization that has proved its ability to turn out conservative voters on precinct and neighborhood levels in presidential elections for at least 20 years.
Both McCain and Obama began major efforts aimed at women voters this week. Allen's wife, former Virginia First Lady Susan Allen, headlined an event for McCain in Richmond on Wednesday. Current First Lady Anne Holton and Lisa Collis, her predecessor and wife of former Gov. Mark R. Warner, take on a daylong string of Obama events Thursday in Virginia Beach, Williamsburg, Richmond and Herndon.
Nationally, McCain enjoys more support among men while women trend more toward Obama, said University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato.
"In Virginia, the gender war is more equally matched, which is why it's closer here," Sabato said. "On the whole, based on what I've seen around the country, I think women are more moveable, either to build up a bigger Obama majority or to narrow the chasm for McCain."
Also, Obama's rival for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, on Wednesday asked Democrats who volunteered for her campaign to work for Obama in Virginia. The same program, called Hillary Sent Me!, has been used to marshal her loyalists in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.
"Every single conversation, every single phone call, every single volunteer could make a difference in winning Virginia," said an e-mail solicitation sent to activists by her political action committee, HillPAC.
Bob Lewis has covered Virginia poltics since 2000.
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire
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The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 15, 2008 Wednesday
Metro Edition
CANDIDATES AGREE EARMARKS NEED REFORM
BYLINE: FROM STAFF REPORTS
SECTION: VIRGINIA; Campaign Notebook; Pg. B5
Former Gov. Jim Gilmore said Tuesday that he will not request special appropriations known as "earmarks" if he wins election to the U.S. Senate but insisted he will be an advocate for federal funding of Virginia priorities.
The Republican candidate signed a "No Earmark Pledge" promoted by FreedomWorks, a Washington, D.C.-based grass-roots organization that advocates for lower taxes and limited government. The practice of directing federal spending through earmarks has been criticized by watchdog groups and reform advocates who charge that lawmakers excessively load up legislation with pet projects.
Gilmore said earmarks are used to buy votes and called the practice "bad finance" and "bad politics."
Gilmore is battling former Democratic Gov. Mark Warner for the Senate seat held by Republican John Warner, who is retiring. They are not related.
John Warner has sponsored or co-sponsored congressional earmarks that directed federal funds for key military and defense projects in Virginia, as well as transportation projects and college research initiatives. But Gilmore said the veteran senator "has made an effort to put things into the proper process, into the appropriations process, so they can be weighed and balanced, and I don't take issue with that approach."
Mark Warner agreed that the use of earmarks should be reformed, particularly in transportation spending bills, saying, "The problem with earmarks is when people try to slide these things in without any transparency."
-- Michael Sluss and Mason Adams
Warner points to impact of globalization on region
U.S. Senate candidate Mark Warner told a group of 25 mostly young professionals Tuesday that sweeping changes wrought by technology and globalization have brought both challenges and opportunities to Western Virginia.
During a candidate forum sponsored by NewVa Connects, a young professionals networking and advocacy group, Warner spent part of his time addressing energy and market issues, but he tailored much of his speech toward Southwest Virginia's ability to compete globally.
He said that globalization has resulted in some jobs lost, but it's also helped to level the playing field for people in rural communities and small cities.
-- Mason Adams
Webb defends Obama against NRA criticism
The National Rifle Association has pegged presidential candidate Barack Obama as an enemy of gun rights, but U.S. Sen. Jim Webb is defending his fellow Democrat on the Second Amendment.
In a new radio ad for Obama's campaign, Webb says: "I am an NRA member, and I know that my friend Barack Obama will protect our Second Amendment rights."
The ad is airing on radio stations in much of Virginia. Obama's positions on gun rights are getting more attention as the Democrat competes for votes in rural areas of the state.
The NRA's political arm has endorsed Republican John McCain and depicted Obama as a threat to gun rights, warning that Obama would be "the most anti-gun president in American history."
Obama has raised the issue of Second Amendment rights himself in visits to Southwest Virginia. At a rally in Lebanon last month, he told the crowd: "I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won't take your handgun away."
While his campaign insists he will not curtail gun rights, Obama has been endorsed by one of the nation's most visible gun control organizations. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence announced its support for Obama on Monday.
-- Michael Sluss
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 15, 2008 Wednesday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Rolling stone is shrinking with the times Rolling Stone changes with the times ROLLING STONE IS CHANGING WITH THE TIMES
SECTION: DAILY BREAK; Pg. E8
The Associated Press
NEW YORK
After more than four decades of standing out with a larger format than other magazines, Rolling Stone will look like everyone else starting with the Oct. 30 issue, due out this week.
The adoption of a standard format could boost single-copy sales and reduce production costs for ad inserts . The magazine says any cost savings, though, will be offset by the inclusion of more pages and the shift to thicker, glossier paper.
Rolling Stone chose Barack Obama for the cover of the Oct. 30 issue. The last issue in the oversize format featured a cartoon of John McCain.
"Like the man we are featuring on the cover for the third time in seven months ... we embrace the idea of change," Editor Jann S. Wenner wrote in the new issue. "Not change for the sake of change, but change as evolution and growth and renewal, change as the kind of cultural renaissance that gave birth to Rolling Stone more than four decades ago."
Rolling Stone first published in 1967 as a tabloid-size newspaper . It began printing on a four-color press in 1973 and magazine-quality paper in 1981, when it also shrank to its just-abandoned 10-by-12-inch size and adopted the feel of a magazine-newspaper hybrid.
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October 15, 2008 Wednesday
Regional Edition
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
THE AYERS CONTROVERSY
Obama Responds With New Ads
Barack Obama is pushing back anew against the "palling around with terrorists" charge -- running two television advertisements and a radio spot in states where the Republican Party has ads noting his association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers.
The Obama ads directly take on charges that he launched his political career in Ayers's living room, among others. One of Obama's TV ads shows an exterior shot of a Ramada Inn, and a narrator, with a weary-sounding tsk-tsk, says Obama started his "first campaign here, not in anyone's living room."
The controversy over Ayers appears to have had little negative impact on Obama. In a just-released New York Times-CBS News poll, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they had already heard "a lot" or "some" about Obama's association with Ayers. Nine percent volunteered that they were bothered by that connection. A majority, 56 percent, said there was nothing about Obama's background or past associations that concerned them.
The poll showed Obama up 14 points over John McCain overall.
The subject of Ayers is expected to arise in tonight's debate. McCain, in fact, said Obama had "probably ensured" that it will come up after Obama accused him of being too afraid to say it to his face in their two earlier encounters.
"It's not that I give a damn about some old washed-up terrorist and his terrorist wife," McCain told a radio interviewer.
"What I care about, and what the American people care about, is whether [Obama] is being truthful with the American people, whether it be on raising taxes or whether it be his commitment to take public financing or whether it be his association with Ayers, who he said was a guy in the neighborhood when the fact is he launched his political career in Bill Ayers's living room," McCain said.
-- Anne E. Kornblut
GROUP UNDER SCRUTINY
Obama Addresses His Past ACORN Link
TOLEDO -- Barack Obama distanced himself from the voter registration group ACORN on Tuesday while also playing down the allegations of fraud that have embroiled the organization.
ACORN offices are under scrutiny in numerous states for allegedly having registered thousands of people under fake names.
Taking a break from debate preparations, Obama told reporters during a brief news conference this afternoon, that his "relationship to ACORN is pretty straightforward. It's probably 13 years ago when I was still practicing law, I represented ACORN, and my partner in that representation was the U.S. Justice Department in having Illinois implement what was called the 'motor voter' law, to make sure that people could go to DMVs and driver's license facilities to get registered. It wasn't being implemented. That was my relationship and is my relationship to ACORN."
He said he had further interactions with the group through its Chicago office, in his capacity as a local elected official. Obama added, "We've got the best voter registration and turnout and volunteer operation in politics right now, and we don't need ACORN's help."
-- Shailagh Murray
AD BUYS
AFL-CIO Spending Big In Support of Obama
The AFL-CIO announced a new wave of mail Tuesday that is part of a $53.4 million voter-mobilization effort aimed at gun owners, veterans and retirees in key states.
"The mail pieces will be followed by phone calls and door visits by union volunteers to this group to reinforce the central message: 'I want to protect two things: my job and my gun. That's why I'm supporting Barack Obama,' " Steve Smith of the AFL-CIO said in a statement.
The Service Employees International Union also reported this week $356,000 in phone banking and mailers, along with a hefty run of TV ads focused on health-care issues and paid for by the union's political action committee. Environmental groups also sponsored mailers attacking John McCain; the League of Conservation Voters reported spending $280,000 for a "media buy" opposing McCain.
The National Rifle Association reported small expenditures for literature opposing Obama. And a group called the National Republican Trust PAC reported spending $75,000 in the past 24 hours on e-mails and online banner ads opposing Obama.
-- Matthew Mosk
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The Washington Post
October 15, 2008 Wednesday
Suburban Edition
With Huge Money Advantage, Obama Ramps Up Ads
BYLINE: Matthew Mosk; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A05
Sen. John McCain stepped into a ballroom at the Grand Hyatt in New York last night for what was likely to be his last fundraiser of the 2008 presidential campaign.
But while the event, which was expected to net $8 million to $10 million for the Republican National Committee, will provide a much-needed infusion for the GOP nominee, it will do little to whittle down the massive financial advantage that Sen. Barack Obama is using to dominate the electoral landscape.
Exactly how much money the Democrat has raised will not be clear until next week, when the two campaigns are required to report their September fundraising totals to the Federal Election Commission, although some strategists are openly speculating that he could approach $100 million for the month. That would shatter a record Obama set in August, when he brought in $67 million.
As the first presidential candidate to run a general-election campaign entirely with private donations, Obama is building a significant fundraising advantage and is now using that imbalance to swamp McCain on the airwaves and in building turnout operations coast to coast.
Voters in large swaths of Florida will see Obama television commercials dozens of times before catching sight of a McCain ad. A drive across Virginia will wend past 51 Obama field offices, compared with 19 for McCain. "It's given them resources to compete in multiple battlegrounds in all dimensions -- on the ground, through the mail, with media, everything," Chris Kofinis, a Democratic political strategist, said of Obama's fundraising success. "I think people will look back and say this was one of the most pivotal decisions in his campaign."
Since accepting $84 million in public funds, McCain has been barred from raising money for his own campaign. He has sought to keep pace with Obama's effort by holding RNC fundraisers like last night's event in New York. The party committee raised $66 million in September and has begun to expand its presence on television with ads featuring blistering attacks on Obama.
At the same time, the RNC is leading an effort to challenge the legality of millions of dollars in "un-itemized" donations that Obama has collected. Under FEC rules, his campaign does not have to document the names of donors who give less than $200.
The RNC is keeping a growing list of phony donors and unexplained credit card charges that it believes point to more than a simple inability by the Obama team to keep track of all the money flowing in. Steve and Rachel Larman, a Missouri couple who vote Republican, told local reporters that they found a $2,300 charge for a donation to the Obama campaign on their credit card statement that they could not explain. Patricia Phillips, a Virginia Republican, had a similar experience, she said, when she opened her MasterCard statement last month to discover a $5 charge from the Obama campaign. "I thought, 'Oh, my! This is not from me,' " she said.
Other donations have arrived under such obviously bogus names as Edrty Eddty and Es Esh.
Experts called it a common problem on an uncommon scale -- while there have always been donors who, for a host of reasons, tried to circumvent federal election rules and give campaign contributions without providing their real names, they are more frequent with Obama because of the volume of donations his campaign is processing.
"I'm sure they have a system in place to screen out improper donations," said Scott Thomas, a former FEC chairman. "Their problem is they have such a massive donor base and so many of these coming in that it's hard to keep up."
Obama campaign aides said they have followed a policy of sending immediate refunds to people who contact the campaign to say that they have been charged for a contribution they did not make. "While no organization is protected from Internet fraud, we have taken every available step to root out improper contributions, updating our systems when necessary," said Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman.
So far, the complaints have not prompted FEC action. And Obama's controversial decision to forgo public funding and instead raise money on his own is paying huge dividends.
The most noticeable evidence of his spending advantage has been on the airwaves, where, in some states, Obama been running seven or eight times as many commercials as McCain. Evan Tracey, an analyst with the Campaign Media Analysis Group, called the disparity stunning.
"McCain's in a shouting match with a guy holding a bullhorn," Tracey said.
Obama booked nearly $4 million in ads in Virginia last week, compared with $487,149 spent there by McCain. He held a similar spending edge in almost every battleground state, Tracey said, enabling him to respond to negative ads by McCain while keeping a regular cycle of positive ads running as well.
Obama has so much money available that he is continuing to push into advertising venues rarely, if ever, visited by political candidates. He has plans for a prime-time infomercial -- the first of its type since Ross Perot used the format 16 years ago. And Advertising Age reported yesterday that an Obama "in-game advertisement" appeared in the EA video game Burnout Paradise. The racing game features a Barack Obama billboard announcing that early voting has begun and references VoteForChange.com, a site paid for by the Obama campaign.
Republican political strategists have acknowledged the Obama advantage, but they argue that if a financial edge is all it takes to win an election, McCain would not be the nominee. (He was massively outspent by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani during the primaries.)
The biggest difficulty for McCain, said Republican political consultant Kevin Madden, is that he has been forced to play defense in states -- such as North Carolina and Indiana -- where he should not be spending money at all at this point.
"The campaign with the money can pin the other campaign down in places where they don't want to be," Madden said.
One result of Obama's decision to opt out of the public financing system is that his campaign accounts will not automatically be subject to an audit after the election, as is standard with campaigns financed from the U.S. Treasury.
Last week, RNC lawyers filed an FEC complaint that they hope will prompt an investigation and audit. The complaint said the RNC believes that the Obama campaign "has accepted prohibited foreign national contributions and knowingly done so through its failure to reasonably investigate contributions originating abroad."
Obama aides dispute this, saying they have bent over backward trying to root out illegal contributions. But that task, they said, has been made difficult by the sheer volume of contributions, many in increments of $5 and $10.
The campaign has taken a number of steps to intercept illegal contributions, whether they are from people using fake names or from donors who are not U.S. citizens, Obama aides said. The campaign has initiated procedures to flag questionable contributions and follow up with donors to determine whether those contributions are lawful or should be refunded.
"Every campaign faces the challenge of screening and reviewing its contributions," LaBolt said. "And we have been aggressive about taking every available step to make sure our contributions are appropriate, updating our systems when necessary."
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October 15, 2008 Wednesday
Clinton looms over presidential debate;
Ex-candidate to be in audience
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
She's the most important political figure not on the stage Wednesday in the final presidential debate, yet Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been mentioned just once in the first three presidential and vice-presidential debates.
That could change with increasingly desperate Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain still looking for voters and with Mrs. Clinton in attendance as Mr. McCain and his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, face off in Hempstead, N.Y.
"If there's an opportunity to raise the Clinton name, it will be in this debate," said Morris Reid, a Democratic communications strategist and former Commerce Department official under President Clinton.
Democrats have been thrilled with Mr. Obama's performance in the first two debates, which polls showed he won.
"There's no question Senator Obama has gained substantially in the last two to three weeks," said Sen. Bob Casey, Pennsylvania Democrat, saying the debates gave Mr. Obama a chance to demonstrate leadership "in the midst of an economic crisis."
Mr. McCain's supporters say he has raised the issues he wanted to raise, but has not broken through - a must for a candidate whose campaign acknowledges he is trailing by 6 percent in national polls.
A month ago, Mrs. Clinton's blue-collar supporters were considered the key to Mr. McCain's path to victory, and he was making active, public efforts to court them. That has receded, with the Republican mentioning her just once, in the first debate, praising her efforts to work on nuclear power. Mr. Obama has not mentioned her, nor did his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden. Jr., or Mr. McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Mr. Reid said he is surprised Mr. McCain hasn't tried to do more with Mrs. Clinton's former supporters.
"McCain's team has been off of their footing and been off of their game, because they should have played that up. If you look back at the convention they were on their game and playing that up," he said.
That included ads Republicans ran during the Democrats' convention using Mrs. Clinton's own criticisms of Mr. Obama. The ads were released, symbolically, at 3 a.m. - a takeoff on Mrs. Clinton's own famous primary-season attack ad about whom voters trusted to answer a crisis phone call to the White House.
Mr. McCain's Clinton voter strategy fizzled along with Mrs. Palin, who initially seemed to have broad appeal but after weeks of brutal press coverage now seems more limited in voters she can attract.
A poll last month showed more than 40 percent of supporters of Mrs. Clinton weren't sold on backing Mr. Obama, though that percentage may have decreased as Mr. Obama has taken control of the race.
Still, Mrs. Clinton remains such a powerful figure that after Mr. McCain last week proposed a mortgage buyout plan in the debate his office leapt to tie it to a proposal Mrs. Clinton had made earlier - even though Mrs. Clinton's office rejected that notion, and Mr. McCain in the debate said he alone deserved credit.
The McCain campaign is keeping its debate strategy close to the vest, but spokesman Tucker Bounds said their overall campaign plan still includes pursuing Mrs. Clinton's voters.
"In target states we're focusing a lot of activity at reaching out to Clinton supporters who may hesitate at supporting an inexperienced candidate like Barack Obama who just doesn't have a record of delivering what he's talked about on the campaign trail," Mr. Bounds said.
Fox News this week asked Mrs. Clinton whether Mr. McCain should follow her lead in taking "the gloves off" in her debates with Mr. Obama, but she said it's not clear what the Republican can do in this final showdown.
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The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 14, 2008 Tuesday
Metro Edition
BOB BARR STUMPS BRIEFLY IN ROANOKE
BYLINE: By Neil Harvey neil.harvey@roanoke.com 981-3349
SECTION: VIRGINIA; Pg. B1
Most of the television sets in the upstairs room at Corned Beef & Co. on Monday night were tuned to the American League Championship Series baseball playoffs.
A commercial for a sketch comedy show aired during one of the breaks and two comedians, portraying Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, peered down toward the bar, their expressions exaggeratedly hopeful.
"There they are," said Steven Godkin, of Roanoke, his voice tinged with weariness and an air of restrained tension.
Godkin was one of about 30 people who turned out for a Roanoke appearance by Bob Barr, the former member of the U.S. House of Representatives who is the Libertarian Party nominee for president. An Oct. 9 Associated Press report said Barr has for months held steady with about a 1 percent share of support.
In 1998, Barr attained national prominence when he launched an effort to begin an inquiry into whether to impeach President Bill Clinton. His appearance in Roanoke came one day after Clinton, campaigning for Obama, drew a crowd of about 3,500 to downtown Roanoke.
The Libertarian party is known for its advocacy of small government, civil liberties and increased personal privacy, and its opposition to income taxes and acts of coercive physical force.
"We take what's best about the two major parties," said Jeff Bowles of Fincastle, who is the chairman of the Libertarian Party of Virginia. "Republicans have always been seen as fiscally responsible. Democrats ... care about people or have a reputation for caring about other people. We're looking to get tax dollars back in Americans' hands. I think a lot of people are frustrated by the overreaction of government to problems created by previous overreactions."
William Kesler of Roanoke said he has attended rallies for both McCain and Obama. He disagrees equally with both but feels McCain represents a greater threat to American liberties.
"I don't think either one of the major party candidates represents what we need to get back to what America was founded on," said Kesler. He added that he understood why some people might consider voting for a third party candidate "a wasted vote, but if it's what you believe, that's where your vote needs to go."
As he waited for Barr's appearance, Godkin defined Libertarians as "constitutionalists."
"Both parties have lost it, what our forefathers intended for us to become," he said. "I believe in this movement. I am done voting for the lesser of two evils."
Jocelyn Casto of Roanoke said she showed up because she heard about the gathering on the radio. She declared herself an independent, a voter undecided between McCain and Barr. She said she has objections to Obama's positions on health care and foreign policy.
"I think he'd be better with the economy, but the economy's not everything," she said.
Barr showed up about 7:30 p.m. Dressed in jeans, a striped shirt and a navy sport coat, he sat at the bar, ordered a Newcastle ale and casually fielded questions from the crowd on subjects ranging from education, welfare, the bailout and health care.
He said were he elected president, his first actions would be to restrict privacy invasions by the government, cut 10 percent of the executive office, submit legislation to undo the bailout and challenge Congress to cut its budget by at least 10 percent.
Bowles was optimistic but practical about his candidate's chances for success in the current race.
"We might not win, but we're going to raise ideas and bring forth concepts that aren't being discussed," he said.
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The Washington Post
October 14, 2008 Tuesday
Met 2 Edition
Obama Adds $60 Billion to Economic Plan; McCain Expected to Unveil Proposals Today
BYLINE: Robert Barnes and Shailagh Murray; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
DATELINE: TOLEDO, Oct. 13
Democrat Barack Obama advocated an immediate and expensive economic assistance package Monday, while Republican John McCain readied a set of specific new proposals of his own, as the candidates entered a three-week sprint toward a presidential election that appears certain to turn on fixing the nation's faltering economy.
Obama consulted with Democratic congressional leaders and then proposed an additional $60 billion in tax breaks and other benefits for his economic stimulus plan. He and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said they favor a lame-duck session of Congress immediately after the Nov. 4 election to pass such a measure.
"We can't wait to help workers and families and communities who are struggling right now -- who don't know if their job or their retirement will be there tomorrow, who don't know if next week's paycheck will cover this month's bills," Obama said at a speech here.
McCain delayed announcing new proposals until Tuesday, and he used a speech in Virginia Beach to offer a gloomy assessment of the country's financial status, present himself as the tested leader ready to address problems, and to separate himself from the policies of President Bush.
In the face of new polls that showed a widening Obama lead, McCain instead bucked up a boisterous crowd of about 12,000 with a pledge to "never give up" the fight to lead the nation.
"Senator Obama is measuring the drapes, and planning with Speaker Pelosi and Senator [Harry M.] Reid to raise taxes, increase spending, take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections and concede defeat in Iraq," he said. "You know what they forgot? They forgot to let you decide. My friends, we've got them just where we want them."
In delving more and more into the specifics of potential financial remedies, Obama and McCain are moving beyond trying to convince voters that he is best prepared to handle the crisis to offering specific proposals for relief, particularly to voters who think that "Main Street" was not addressed when Congress passed a plan to rescue Wall Street.
Polls show that the economy is by far the most important issue to voters. In a recent Washington Post-ABC News survey, 53 percent of respondents said it will be the decisive issue, as opposed to 11 percent who cited national security.
Having specific programs and proposals may also be crucial in Wednesday night's final presidential debate, in Hempstead, N.Y., which is slated to focus on domestic issues.
Obama largely avoided mention of McCain on Monday and instead focused on his new proposals.
"It's a plan that begins with one word that's on everyone's mind, and it's spelled J-O-B-S," he said.
The proposals include:
· A temporary tax credit for firms that create jobs in the United States.
· Penalty-free 401(k) and IRA withdrawals through 2009, to allow struggling families to withdraw up to 15 percent of their savings, up to $10,000. (Obama acknowledged that McCain had earlier proposed a similar but more limited plan.)
· A 90-day foreclosure moratorium for homeowners making "good-faith efforts" to keep up with their mortgage payments.
· A new entity created to lend to state and local governments, allowing for an effort similar to the liquidity assistance that the Federal Reserve recently extended to commercial banks.
· The temporary elimination of taxes on unemployment insurance benefits.
[McCain economic policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin told the Reuters news service Tuesday morning that the senator from Arizona would outline an estimated $52.5 billion in new proposals. Most of that would go to pay for a lower tax rate of 10 percent on money that seniors withdraw from IRAs and 401(k) retirement plans in 2009 and 2010, Holtz-Eakin said. McCain would also propose expanding the tax deduction for investment losses to $15,000 a year for the tax years 2008 and 2009, the aide told Reuters.]
Obama also raised the prospect of government aid to the automobile industry and more aggressive federal action to help banks and free up consumer credit. He has already outlined benefits such as a middle-class tax break -- delivered immediately in the form of a check -- and small-business incentives that would total about $115 billion over two years.
"CEOs got greedy. Politicians spent money they didn't have. Lenders tricked people into buying homes they couldn't afford, and some folks knew they couldn't afford them and bought them anyway," Obama said as the crowd of about 3,000 applauded. "We've lived through an era of easy money, in which we were allowed and even encouraged to spend without limits; to borrow instead of save."
He conceded: "For many folks, this was not a choice but a necessity. People have been forced to turn to credit cards and home-equity loans to keep up, just like our government has borrowed from China and other creditors to help pay its bills. But we now know how dangerous that can be. Once we get past the present emergency, which requires immediate new investments, we have to break that cycle of debt."
The Toledo speech coincided with a meeting of House Democratic leaders to discuss action on a stimulus bill when the chamber reconvenes, as planned, after the election.
Exiting what she called an economic summit, Pelosi told reporters that the nation is in "survival mode." Declining to outline a specific plan, she appeared with a group of liberal economists who endorsed a massive federal government investment in infrastructure and cash transfers to state and local governments that are facing shortfalls and layoffs. They also endorsed another 13-week extension of unemployment benefits.
Pelosi said the new proposals are a necessary counterpoint to the $700 billion rescue plan Congress passed for Wall Street.
"It seemed it was a largely Republican package with largely Democratic votes. If it's going to happen that way, we might as well write the bill ourselves and do the right thing for the American people," she said.
On a conference call with reporters, Holtz-Eakin called Obama's new ideas "hypocrisy."
He accused the Democrat of supporting tax increases that would more than offset the tax credit he proposed Monday. And he said Monday's proposals would "hardly undo" the damage to the economy created by Obama's plan to boost the top marginal income tax rates.
"He pretends to offer a, quote, 'rescue,' " he said of Obama. "But the rescue is simply from the threat of his own policies."
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said it was always the campaign's intention to devote Monday's speech to "John McCain's view of this race and what the stakes are."
In his address, McCain frankly acknowledged that he is behind in polls but said he has been counted out before.
McCain portrayed himself as the pugnacious underdog. He revived his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention and used a version of the word "fight" at least 17 times.
"What America needs in this hour is a fighter, someone who puts all his cards on the table and trusts the judgment of the American people," he said. "I come from a long line of McCains who believed that to love America is to fight for her. I have fought for you most of my life."
He added: "There are other ways to love this country, but I've never been the kind to do it from the sidelines."
He also sought to put light between himself and the current occupant of the White House. The next president "will need experience, courage, judgment and a bold plan of action to take this country in a new direction," McCain said. "We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight: waiting for our luck to change."
The settings for Monday's events told much about the campaign's state of play. McCain was on the stump in Virginia -- where no Democratic presidential candidate has won since Lyndon B. Johnson carried it in 1964 -- and North Carolina, which has a 24-year streak of supporting Republican White House candidates. Polls show Obama ahead in the Old Dominion and running close in the Tar Heel State.
Obama, meanwhile, continued his habit of conducting his debate preparations in red states. He readied for the first debate in Florida and the second in North Carolina and is now in Ohio -- all states that voted for Bush in 2004.
Staff writers Michael D. Shear, traveling with McCain, and Paul Kane in Washington contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post; John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin greet supporters in Virginia Beach. Thousands of Hampton Roads residents attended the rally. Story, B1.
IMAGE; By Joe Raedle -- Getty Images; Barack Obama talks to Ohio residents at the SeaGate Convention Centre in Toledo, where he announced his new proposals for the economy.
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The Washington Post
October 14, 2008 Tuesday
Regional Edition
Time to Be Outward Bound;
__
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A17
Since George W. Bush became president, the Republican Party has presided over massive, out-of-control government spending, converted a federal budget surplus into a half-trillion-dollar deficit, and looked the other way while Wall Street's greed and stupidity turned the hallowed free market into scorched earth. Now the party has to watch as a Republican president orchestrates the biggest government intervention in the workings of the private sector since the New Deal.
Can any Republican candidate claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government? For that matter, can any Republican candidate plausibly explain what the party is supposed to stand for these days?
It's pathetic to hear right-wing talk radio blowhards try to associate Barack Obama with "radical" or "socialist" views when a Republican administration is tossing aside "Atlas Shrugged" and speed-reading "Das Kapital."
The Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it will make unlimited quantities of dollars available for currency swaps with the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank, as these institutions scramble to keep major commercial banks from failing -- and potentially taking U.S. banks with them. None of Bush's Cabinet members could be heard sniffing about the irrelevance of effete "Old Europe."
This attitude adjustment is necessary, mind you. The question isn't whether some kind of drastic, frankly socialistic measures are needed to save the American economy but which measures -- buying up toxic mortgage-based investments (as the White House said it would do), buying up the troubled mortgages themselves (as John McCain wants to do), or pouring money into selected banks and taking part ownership (as the White House now says it will do). Sitting back and letting the dire situation correct itself is not an option, because the market's phoenix-like solution begins with self-immolation.
Politically, though, there is at least some justice in the fact that a Republican president has to deal with this Republican-made crisis. That little piece of irony isn't worth $700 billion, but so far it's all we're getting.
After eight years of the Bush administration, the Republican Party -- to put it bluntly -- is a mess and a fraud.
There is an intellectual case to be made for the economic philosophy that the party purports to represent. I disagree with it strongly, but I respect its integrity -- in a way that this administration and the Republican leadership in Congress clearly did not.
The Republican Party said it believed in free and unfettered competition, but it picked winners and losers through a system of crony capitalism. All it takes to make my point is a name: Jack Abramoff.
The Bush tax cuts, which heavily favored the wealthy, showed that the president and his allies in Congress didn't believe in progressive taxation. I think that's outrageous, but the administration goes further and actually seems to prefer a regressive tax scheme. That's the only explanation I can think of for why hedge fund managers making hundreds of millions of dollars a year pay taxes at a lower rate than their chauffeurs.
Now that it's election time, the party -- as usual -- is trying to convince Americans that it stands on the side of the little guy. Sarah Palin has been trotted out to convince everyone that the party cares deeply about the eternal roster of cultural issues -- God, guns, gays, abortion, etc. If McCain and Palin were elected, the party would doubtless return these issues to the storage locker until the next election, at which point they would be dusted off once more.
Oh, and isn't the Republican Party supposed to stand foursquare against intrusions on privacy? Then why were Republicans so unmoved when it was revealed that the Bush administration had been conducting unprecedented surveillance of Americans' private electronic communications?
When Ronald Reagan was president, I had a sense of what ideas and principles his party stood for. When Newt Gingrich and his "Contract With America" brigade took Washington by storm in 1994, I knew what they believed -- loopy though it was -- and what they hoped to accomplish. I defy anyone to give a coherent explanation of what today's Republican Party, under George Bush and now John McCain, wants to do except perpetuate itself in power.
When a political party reaches the point of lurching incoherence, the most effective cure is a good, long spell in the wilderness. Americans should help Republicans out by sending them home to get their act together.
The writer will answer questions at 1 p.m. today at http://www.washingtonpost.com. His e-mail address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com
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The Washington Post
October 14, 2008 Tuesday
Regional Edition
McCain Attack Ads Called Inevitable -- And Ineffective
BYLINE: Howard Kurtz; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
Joe Trippi, the veteran Democratic strategist, said there's a reason John McCain's attack ads don't seem to be hurting Barack Obama.
"I don't think they matter hardly at all," Trippi, who worked for John Edwards during the primaries, said of both sides' commercials. "Most people are looking at the financial crisis, looking at their 401(k)s, and in between they're seeing the two candidates beat the living daylights out of each other and rolling their eyes."
Alex Castellanos, the veteran Republican strategist, said Obama's image is hard to tarnish because voters have come to know the senator from Illinois.
"They've seen him for a year and a half in debates," said Castellanos, who worked for Mitt Romney in the primaries. "They've been barraged with television. To come up now and say, 'Don't believe your lying eyes -- this candidate is not who you think he is,' is a very tough challenge."
As the presidential candidates open their war chests in the campaign's final stretch -- spending a combined $28 million on television ads in the week that ended Oct. 4 -- political pros are mixed on whether they're getting their money's worth. Obama, who faces no fundraising restrictions because he declined to accept public financing, is outspending the senator from Arizona on the air by a 2 to 1 margin.
But some analysts say neither side's spots are changing the campaign dialogue. This has been particularly true, analysts say, during the recent financial crisis that has at times overwhelmed the campaign itself.
"This race is not being moved by television advertising, with the fundamental factors so much to the advantage of the Democrats," said Ken Goldstein, who directs the University of Wisconsin's advertising project. "It's just adding to the fog of information out there. . . . Obama's huge spending makes McCain have to scream even louder to get his message heard."
Both campaigns are putting a handful of ads into heavy rotation, while barely airing others that are designed to generate cable news coverage and Internet traffic.
For the two weeks that ended last Friday, Obama's ads aired 66,169 times and McCain's 32,027, said Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group. "Obama's just turning up the volume to a level that's never been seen before," he said.
McCain's most frequent 30-second spot -- airing 8,490 times -- accuses Obama of being "mum on the market crisis" and calls him "a risk your family can't afford." In second place, airing 7,904 times, is an ad that calls Obama "dishonorable" for saying that U.S. troops in Afghanistan were "just air-raiding villages and killing civilians." In fact, Obama said he wanted to avoid such occurrences, which have been confirmed by the Pentagon.
Both commercials were made in partnership with the Republican National Committee, which can underwrite a bigger rollout. But under federal rules, such hybrid ads must be based on issues and cannot feature a candidate asking for support.
"All you can do is basically run a negative campaign" in such hybrid ads, said Tad Devine, a top strategist for Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, which faced a similar dilemma. "You have McCain, whose content is limited, versus Obama, who can say whatever he wants."
One example is a hybrid ad released Friday that assails Obama for his relationship with former radical William Ayers but then abruptly switches to an attack on liberal Democrats in Congress over the mortgage meltdown.
McCain has put out a number of phantom ads, such as one charging that Obama's career was "born of the corrupt Chicago political machine" and invoking convicted businessman Antoin "Tony" Rezko. That ad, which drew considerable media coverage, aired 11 times. Another spot begins: "Who is Barack Obama? The National Journal says he's the Senate's most liberal. How extreme." It aired twice.
Obama's most frequently aired commercials were a pair of health-care spots, which were seen 32,990 times. One notes that McCain "says that he's going to give you a $5,000 tax credit. What he doesn't tell you is that he's going to tax your employer-based health-care benefits, for the first time ever." Flush with cash, Obama is running a two-minute spot about his economic plan.
Obama also produced a commercial last week accusing McCain of "smears" in his advertising, but there is no record of it having run. McCain's ad the same day, accusing Obama of having "lied" in his claims, aired twice.
While McCain's advertising is almost 100 percent negative and Obama's is one-third negative, those figures are somewhat misleading. Obama's spending is so great, said Tracey, that he is matching the volume of McCain's negative ads while churning out even more spots of the positive variety.
Strategists could think of only two commercials this year that had a significant impact on the campaign dialogue. One was Hillary Rodham Clinton's "3 a.m." ad, which questioned Obama's readiness to handle an emergency phone call, and the other was McCain's spot likening Obama to Paris Hilton, which triggered a debate over the celebrity aspects of his candidacy.
But while positive spots are often deemed less newsworthy, a sustained campaign can yield results over time. Devine said Obama's lead in battleground states where he has advertised heavily is greater than in states where he has been on the air less often. In one recent ad, Obama talks about the values instilled by his mother and grandparents.
"Obama has told his bio, a lot of his story," Castellanos says. "It's especially important for the new guy that people don't know. With McCain, it's harder to fill up a glass that's already full."
Even if McCain and the RNC were to boost spending on the ad involving Obama and Ayers, several analysts doubted it would be effective during the current financial crisis.
"It's very hard for people to care about old hippie terrorists when the world is collapsing around them," Tracey said.
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; A money gap leads McCain to "scream even louder," an analyst says.
IMAGE; Obama, free of spending curbs, is able to mix negative and positive.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 14, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
GOP Officials Assail Community Group;
McCain Campaign Accuses ACORN of Voter Fraud, Highlights Ties to Obama
BYLINE: Steven A. Holmes and Mary Pat Flaherty; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02
ACORN, a community organizing group that has operated for nearly 40 years outside the national spotlight, suddenly finds itself a central issue in the presidential campaign.
Republican officials and advisers to Sen. John McCain have sought to paint the group -- which focuses on low-income housing, voter registration, the minimum wage and other issues -- as radical and have accused it of playing a role in the economic crisis and fomenting voter fraud. At the same time, the McCain campaign has sought to tie the group closely to Sen. Barack Obama.
The charges have come repeatedly, in news releases, conference calls to reporters and remarks on the campaign trail.
Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz called ACORN a "quasi-criminal group" last week during one of a series of news conferences, charging that the group was committing fraud during its voter-registration drives. "We don't do that lightly," RNC chief counsel Sean Cairncross said.
All this leaves leaders of ACORN -- formally known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- agape.
"It's pretty shocking that anyone would say such a thing," Bertha Lewis, interim chief organizer for National ACORN, said of Diaz's assertion. "It's a lie, it's irresponsible, and I'm really disappointed that they would say such a thing. What's the meaning of 'quasi-criminal' anyway?"
Cairncross accused ACORN of engaging in a "systematic effort to undermine the election process" through its voter-registration drives. Media reports have cited problems in 12 states, in which registration cards submitted by ACORN were incomplete or had false or duplicate names or were turned in without a person's knowledge.
Much of the political attention has stemmed from a program in Nevada, where ACORN hired 59 inmates in a work program to help register voters. The state attorney general halted the program. Nevada authorities last week seized records from ACORN's Las Vegas office after accusing the group of submitting fraudulent registration forms, which included names of players for the Dallas Cowboys.
State officials in North Carolina and county officials in Missouri are also investigating registrations submitted by ACORN.
ACORN has helped register 1.3 million voters in 21 states and routinely notifies local officials of incomplete or suspicious registration cards, Lewis said in a recent interview. She said local election officials sometimes use those cards to "come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards."
In a statement, Lewis said that "groups threatened by our historic success" have gone after ACORN because of whom the group registers: As many as 70 percent of the new voters are minorities, and half are younger than 30.
The McCain campaign also has sought to link ACORN to the financial crisis. One of the campaign's online ads says the Chicago chapter of the group was engaged in "bullying banks" to issue "risky" mortgages -- "the same type of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today," the ad's narrator says.
ACORN officials acknowledge that the group lobbied for passage of the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977, which required banks to try to increase lending to low-income home buyers. The group also urged banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to loosen requirements on mortgages available to low-income applicants.
But ACORN officials, supported by several economists, say it is absurd to blame the crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act, which has been in place for decades. They also note that much of the subprime lending came from investment banks not under the act's jurisdiction. In fact, they say, they have been pressuring federal regulators since 1999 to crack down on many of the institutions that provided subprime loans.
"ACORN, more than any other group, pleaded with regulators . . . to please, please regulate these institutions because they were stealing market share from banks that were making safe loans and inflating housing prices," said Mike Shea, executive director of ACORN Housing, an arm of the group that focuses on building low- and moderate-income housing.
ACORN fired back yesterday at the McCain campaign, releasing a 2006 photo of the Arizona senator delivering the keynote speech at a pro-immigration rally in Miami that the group sponsored. "Maybe it is out of desperation that Senator McCain has forgotten that he was for ACORN before he was against ACORN," Lewis said in a news release.
In the interview, Lewis said the attacks are aimed at discrediting not only ACORN but also Obama, noting that the group is what Obama boasts of once being -- a community organizer.
"Look, he's got a funny name, and he started out in a funny profession that is always challenging the status quo," she said.
Republicans have often pointed to links between ACORN and Obama. The McCain campaign has asserted that Obama once represented ACORN in court and did work for it and that it is an arm of his campaign, with Obama trying to conceal an $800,000 payment to the organization for campaign work.
Obama's presidential campaign was endorsed by ACORN's political action committee. And Obama campaign officials acknowledged paying a group affiliated with ACORN more than $800,000 to conduct get-out-the-vote operations during the Democratic primaries in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Texas. The campaign said $80,000 of that money went directly to ACORN.
Campaign officials also said the payment was originally reported to the Federal Election Commission as going toward "staging, sound and lighting" as part of advance work. Officials said that the report was the result of a clerical error and that the campaign later filed amended forms.
Early in Obama's career, he took part in training sessions for ACORN staff members in Chicago, according to campaign and ACORN officials. And in 1995, Obama was one of three lawyers from the law firm of Miner, Barnhill and Galland assigned to represent a coalition of organizations suing the state of Illinois over failure to implement the National Voter Registration Act, or the motor-voter law. The groups included ACORN, the League of Women Voters and the U.S. Justice Department.
The national attention comes at a time when ACORN is trying to dig itself out of an internal scandal.
Its founder, Wade Rathke, resigned after it was alleged that his brother Dale had embezzled nearly $1 million from the organization in 1999 and 2000 through faulty credit card charges. That prompted several foundations providing funding for ACORN to halt making grants until they were assured the organization had cleaned up its operations.
ACORN's board of directors hired an outside auditing firm and the law firm of Sidley Austin -- Barack and Michelle Obama's old law firm -- to advise it.
"Once it was revealed, the board acted swiftly," Lewis said. "They said they wanted a financial review, top to bottom, of our system."
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Marvin Fong -- Cleveland Plain Dealer Via Associated Press; Freddie Johnson, who said he signed 73 voter-registration forms over five months for ACORN, speaks in Cleveland.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
Hispanic voters graduate to brutal ad war;
McCain, Obama duel for growing population
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: PLUGGED IN - POLITICS; B01
Think the campaign's nasty in English? Try it en Espanol.
For the first time, both presidential campaigns are engaged in a brutal, almost completely negative war in Spanish-language commercials, all but overwhelming their other messages to Spanish-speaking voters.
"It's much more harsh. Usually Spanish-language advertising is very sort of softball, inclusive, apple pie kinds of messages," said Louis DeSipio, a professor at the University of California, Irvine. "This is the first year I can think of national commercials coming from both parties, Spanish-language ads taking a harsh message. And it's come early."
For the exploding Hispanic population, graduating to negative advertising is another political coming of age. But it also serves as a reminder that there are two different campaigns going on - one for the English-language audience and another, with a different emphasis, for voters who speak predominantly Spanish, and playing out in both Spanish-language news coverage and ads.
English-language voters receive a steady dose on newscasts and in ads of William Ayers and Charles H. Keating Jr., horse-race coverage of who's up and who's down, and a back and forth over who is more "dishonorable."
Spanish-language audiences, though, have seen Mr. McCain attack Mr. Obama on immigration and Latin American issues, including his willingness to meet with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Mr. Obama responded with ads trying to tie Mr. McCain to Rush Limbaugh on immigration and blasting the Republican for the being unprepared on the economy.
A decade ago the few Spanish-language ads run were clunky translations of English ads. Political pros quickly realized that didn't connect. But for years the pros concluded Spanish-language negative ads still didn't work. That began to change in the 2004 presidential campaign when the Bush-Cheney campaign, along with the positive ads, mixed in ads on abortion and gay marriage to attack Sen. John Kerry.
"There was a dramatic evolution and it took the Republican strategists from 2000, when they almost exclusively aired positive ads, to 2004, when I'd say virtually the same exact strategists decided that the Hispanic electorate was ready for intensely negative advertising," said Adam J. Segal of Johns Hopkins University's Hispanic Voter Project.
The campaigns started out positive this year, but turned nasty after Mr. McCain fired off a commercial this summer arguing Mr. Obama tried to sink the Senate's immigration bill - a charge that's been debunked by myriad fact checkers.
Mr. Obama responded with a commercial linking Mr. McCain, a longtime supporter of Hispanic causes and of citizenship for illegal immigrants, to Rush Limbaugh, a talk show host who harshly criticized amnesty and who Hispanic rights groups say has injected hate into the immigration debate. When Mr. McCain ran a second ad on the subject, Mr. Obama fired back with a commercial arguing Mr. McCain "wants to hide the fact that he's the one who turned his back on us."
Both of them are playing loose with the truth, said Maria Elena Salinas, co-anchor of Noticiero Univision, the Spanish-language network's nightly newscast, who is also a columnist.
"They're both misleading. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have put out immigration ads that are misleading and mischaracterizing," she said, adding that both did advocate for last year's immigration bill but both also voted to build 700 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border - a vote that for many Hispanics symbolizes the negative tone of the immigration debate.
Mrs. Salina said Hispanics have a chance this year to prove they can be difference-makers. Florida, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, all states that went Republican in 2004, are considered at the top of the battleground this year, each has a sizable Hispanic population and many of the newly registered voters in those states are Hispanic.
"People are very motivated and we have to remember one of the reasons the campaigns are going after the Latino vote is a lot of these new naturalized citizens don't have a committed party," she said. "They are both trying, and I dont know that either one of them is actually succeeding, even though it is very clear Latinos are very motivated to vote."
The campaigns said they are pursuing those voters, and that means conveying specific messages just as they would with other identifiable demographics.
"We try to target audiences, of course, and make sure Hispanics in Florida and other regions know what they're voting for," said Hessy Fernandez, spokeswoman Hispanic media for Mr. McCain's campaign. "They need to know Barack Obama has never been in Latin America, they need to know he wants to sit down with dictators, Chavez, Castro."
The Obama camp blamed Mr. McCain for introducing the negative Spanish ads.
"We're responding hard with the truth. They're going to resort to lies and distortions," said Federico de Jesus, a spokesman for the campaign who said the negative ads show Mr. McCain "has a Hispanic problem" among voters.
Polls of Hispanic voters show Mr. Obama leading Mr. McCain by as much as 30 percentage points.
The voters themselves are left to sort out the charges and countercharges, but Spanish-speaking voters are hindered by the dearth of news voices available to them.
Federico Subervi, professor at Texas State University and director of the Center for the Study of Latino Media & Markets, said unless a Spanish-speaking voter lives in Miami, New York, Los Angeles or a handful of other major cities, it's unlilkely they can get a Spanish-language newspaper delivered. And he said Spanish radio is devoid of most political talk outside of a few major markets, such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago.
"But leave those cities, and unless you live in california and have access to Radio Bilingue ... you don't get
political news on a regular basis," he said
That leaves the national Spanish-language networks Telemundo and Univision as the main sources for political news - and gives Spanish-language ads enormous power to control the debate.
Both campaigns have been accessible to Spanish-language press, with Univision's Sunday political talk show Al Punto airing yet another McCain interview last weekend. The topics were Mr. McCain's attacks on Mr. Obama, military action in Venezuela - the candidate ruled that out, saying, "I don't think it's necessary" - and immigration and Hispanic outreach.
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
BYLINE: By Victor Morton, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: PLUGGED IN - POLITICS; INSIDE BLOGOTICS; B03
Drunk-blogging
We've mentioned a couple of times in this space the blog Get Drunk and Vote for McCain. But it's not the only conservative political site that might not win the MADD seal of approval.
Stephen Green, the self-described Vodka Pundit (http://vodkapundit.com), "liveblogged" last week's debate between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain. Only he did it with a twist (of lemon or lime?); he "drunkblogged" it at Pajamas Media (http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/drunkblogging-tonights-mccain-obama-bout/)
"Take a shot every time McCain uses any variation on the word 'crony.' Pajamas Media, its affiliates, employees and advertisers cannot be held responsible for any alcohol poisoning. Closed course, professional driver," Mr. Green wrote.
At 7:56 p.m. (the post used Mountain time), he wrote, "You know how bad this debate is? I'm skipping my third martini and going straight to a double vodka rocks. Maybe a triple." But two minutes later came this sober-sounding lulu, citing an answer from Mr. Obama: "Health insurance 'is a right.' We were endowed by our Creator with a really sweet no-co-pay plan from Aetna, and maybe some free speech. At least I think that's what Jefferson wrote."
His quick assessment: a McCain victory but "not by nearly enough to matter."
Gay overreach
Gay bloggers last week faced up to the suddenly real possibility that voters in the solidly blue state (California) would amend their constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, overturning a state Supreme Court decision.
B. Daniel Blatt of West Hollywood, who blogs under the persona "Gay Patriot West" at Gay Patriot (http://www.gaypatriot .net/), attributed the recent polling turnaround on Proposition 8 to an ad by the amendment's backers framing the issue as one of popular sovereignty, overreaching judges and arrogant lawmakers.
"The repetition of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's exclamation that gay marriage would happen 'whether you like it or not' combined with the inclusion of the line that 'four judges ignored four million voters' makes it appear that the initiative merely restrains an overzealous judiciary and restores sovereignty to the people. People don't like courts resolving controversial social issues."
Mr. Blatt, who founded the Northern Virginia Log Cabin Republicans chapter, also lamented last week's Connecticut Supreme Court decision declaring gay marriage a right in that state.
"My sense is this couldn't come at a better time for gay marriage opponents. Whenever a state court acts against the will of the people who, in this case, through their elected representatives, had actually already passed landmark civil unions legislation, it increases popular support for initiatives banning gay marriage." He predicts that the Connecticut decision "may well have sealed the deal for Proposition 8 in California and not the way those who cheer the decision today would like."
Christianists
"The Catholic Left, which ostensibly advocates compassion and justice in the name of Jesus Christ, does not like Sarah Palin, and finds fault with her unwed 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy, and even accuses her of apostasy," reports a miffed Joseph D'Hippolito last week at the American Thinker blog (http://www.americanthinker .com/)
In September, Michael Sean Winters picked up a Los Angeles Times report that Mrs. Palin was baptized in the Catholic Church. Her parents soon after went to Alaska and began taking their children to Wasilla Assembly of God, the Pentecostal church where a 12-year-old Sarah Palin was "rebaptized." This, Mr. Winters said at the America magazine blog In All Things (http://www. americamagazine.org/blog/blog.cfm?blog_id=2), makes Mrs. Palin an apostate under Catholic teaching.
The claim was roundly denounced at the America site - all but a couple of the 23 comments called the "apostasy" charge ridiculous, noting among other things that Mrs. Palin was not raised a Catholic, that she has never made any formal repudiation of Catholicism, that a 12-year-old can hardly be fully accountable in the face of her parents (Mr. Winters wrongly called her a "teenager" ), that Pentecostalism is not a "total repudiation of the Christian faith" , and that Mr. Winters was comparing the young Sarah's actions with current defiance of church teaching by such adult Democrats.
Mr. D'Hippolito went hardest on the last point - that liberal Catholics were just seeking "to provide pseudo-theological cover for Catholic liberals who wish to vote for the Democratic ticket of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden. Obama supports legalized abortion while Biden, a Catholic, opposes the Magisterium's teaching on abortion."
Mr. D'Hippolito went on to "fisk" another anti-Palin September commentary from a liberal Catholic. Garry Wills wrote in the New York Times that the Alaska governor is unfit for the vice presidential spot because "she was [among other things] ... a mother of an unwed and pregnant 17-year-old"
"What does an unwed daughter's pregnancy have to do with any candidate's qualifications and fitness for office? Moreover, why do liberals who criticize conservatives for obsessing about sexual matters in politics suddenly display the same obsession?" Mr. D'Hippolito wrote, noting that when President Clinton was investigated for perjury and obstruction of justice surrounding the Paula Jones sexual-harassment suit, Mr. Wills went ad hominem on Special Prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr.
Assassin chic
What side of the political spectrum made a cliche of the title phrase mentioned in the next sentence?
In a post titled "No Justice, No Peace?" Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit (http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/) takes aim at the liberal media's latest round of caterwauling, noting that "we've had nearly 8 years of lefty assassination fantasies about George W. Bush, and Bill Ayers' bombing campaign is explained away as a consequence of him having just felt so strongly about social justice, but a few people yell things at McCain rallies and suddenly it's a sign that anger is out of control in American politics? It's nice of McCain to try to tamp that down ... but, please, can we also note the staggering level of hypocrisy here? (And that's before we get to the Obama campaign's thuggish tactics aimed at silencing critics)"
In another post, Mr. Reynolds began to scratch the iceberg of all the liberal assassination fantasies about Mr. Bush, which "various people, oddly, deny that such existed. Try Death of a President by Gabriel Range, or Nicholson Baker's novel, Checkpoint, just to start. Similar Obama assassination fantasies, should they appear, won't get this kid-glove treatment from Big Media, I suspect. 'It is not the first time a novelist has chosen fiction to express their point of view about American society or politics. Upton Sinclair did it. So did John Steinbeck. Nick Baker does it with more nerve and fewer pages.' "
Updates reminded readers of the play "I'm Going to Kill the President" , which Salon called "one of the most amusing plays currently running in New York ... a madcap farce about terrorism
and apathy in John Ashcroft's America whose performance may or may not be a federal offens " And a frame capture from CBS' " The Late Late Show with Craig Kilbor " showing a picture of Mr. Bush and the caption " Snipers Wanted."
Mr. Reynolds also linked to an example of current liberal anger, detailed by Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit (www.gatewaypundit.blogspot.com). And to the media response.
"All week we've heard about how angry and mean the Republicans are because of 4 or 5 hecklers at the McCain-Palin rallies," wrote Mr. Hoft. "Tonight: Leftists at the Philadelphia Flyers game booed Sarah Palin, her daughter Willow, and her 6 year-old daughter Piper as they went on the ice to drop the first puck of the season."
After showing a video clip, Mr. Hoft mockingly wonders aloud: "Surely, the liberal media who have been all over the entire 'angry' GOP this week ... will condemn these leftist thugs for attacking a 6 year-old little girl? The New York Times is upset of course:With Sarah Palin."
* Contact Victor Morton at vmorton@washingtontimes.
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Obama gaining in Midwest;
Region may play pivotal role deciding the election
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: PLUGGED IN - POLITICS; B01
DATELINE: JEFFERSON CITY, Mo
f Sen. Barack Obama wins the presidency on Election Day, he will probably have the heartland to thank.
Mr. Obama today holds a solid lead in Iowa, a slim lead in Missouri and barely trails Republican Sen. John McCain in Indiana - three states that backed President Bush in 2004 and represent 29 electoral votes, more than enough to make up Republicans' margin of victory last time.
The Washington Times logged more than 1,100 miles driving the Midwest to gauge voter sentiment before the Nov. 4 election and found deep discontent with the nation's course, severe economic woes and discomfort with the possibility of the first black president, all of which may sway the results.
In Missouri, where the campaign has more than 40 offices and an army of grass-roots volunteers, some of Mr. Obama's support comes from fed-up Republicans such as John Lindsey, 28, a restaurant server in Columbia who said he regrets his vote for Mr. Bush in 2004.
"Obama and Biden, more than McCain's party, they represent change and not just rhetoric," Mr. Lindsey said. "It feels like enough people want change and they may think, like I do, that the country really needs the other party this time."
The Show Me State has an unemployment rate of 6.6 percent, its highest in 17 years, and nearly 800,000 people are living at the poverty line.
A car dealership employee from Jefferson City said she sees more McCain voters in town, but thinks Mr. Obama might win Missouri because "they are for the people, for the workers."
Both voters attended an event starring vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the capital city's Memorial Park, where a supporter enthusiastically responded to campaign promises with "Get 'er done!"
However, along Missouri's rural roads near the Ozark Mountains, there are troubling signs for the Democrats.
A mysterious billboard along Highway 63 in West Plains highlights Mr. Obama's middle name, Hussein, and includes a drawing of the candidate wearing a turban, a takeoff on the inaccurate rumors Mr. Obama is not a Christian. It charges the Democrat would increase "abortions, same-sex marriages, taxes [and] gun regulations."
A shop owner said he was appalled by the sign, which appeared one morning and has generated spirited discussion in the local paper the Daily Quill.
"It's like the KKK. Someone put it up and no one will say who did it. I guess it's well within your First Amendment rights, but you should own up to it," he said.
Not far from the Obama billboard, another sign declared: "Had enough? Vote Democrat."
Missouri has chosen the winner of the presidential election every cycle since 1956, and before that, every cycle since the turn of the century.
Mr. Obama, who declined to accept public funding and the limits it places on campaign spending, is dominating the heartland airwaves. Obama ads portraying the Democrat as the moderate on health care, attacking Mr. McCain for his health care plan and for proposing big spending are running more regularly than McCain ads across the Midwest.
In Missouri, three Obama ads aired during a half-hour segment of local news, which gave favorable coverage to Mr. Biden's two-day barnstorm.
The Obama campaign is also sponsoring robocalls that say Mr. McCain won't help the middle class because he is tied to Mr. Bush's economic policies of helping the wealthy.
"You can't rebuild an economy with a middle class that's shrinking. You've got to build the middle class, that's how you build an economy," Mr. Biden told voters here during his rally last week.
In Omaha, where the Obama campaign is targeting one congressional district to take advantage of Nebraska's split electoral-vote system, voters see a two-minute ad with the nominee proclaiming, "bitter, partisan fights and outworn ideas of the left and the right won't solve the problems we face today. But a new spirit of unity and shared responsibility will."
Nancy Lawson, 61, has always voted for Republicans. However, the Nebraska native has been laid off from her job in architecture, lost her home and is facing expensive health challenges with minimal insurance coverage.
"This is supposed to be my golden years," she said. "But I've had to use food stamps. I worry about my kids and now I worry about my grandchildren in the future and what's going to happen for them."
She's supporting Mr. Obama because, "I've had it, I've had enough," and the campaign has her volunteering to recruit other Republicans to support the Democratic ticket.
However, Melissa Schere of Gretna, Neb., is voting for the Republican ticket because of vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin.
"What I really like is how she's down to earth and can really connect to moms. I feel like she understands," said Mrs. Schere, a 28-year-old third-grade teacher.
Kenneth Smalley of Hamburg, Iowa, agreed, calling the Alaska governor a "breath of fresh air."
"That's what we need, and there are things about Obama's past I'm not sure about. He seems unknown," Mr. Smalley said.
Mr. Obama has also put in his time on the ground, rallying thousands in Indianapolis Wednesday and telling voters he understands they are "cynical" and "angry" with national leadership.
"But despite all of this, I ask of you ... to believe To believe in yourselves, believe in each other, believe in the future," he said. "We cannot fail, not now. Not when we have a crisis to solve, not when we have an economy to save."
McCain supporter Ambassador Dan Coats, a former senator from Indiana, told reporters he is "a little surprised" the race is so close, but thinks it's a "natural reaction" to the economy and voters taking a look at "the new guy."
"People ultimately won't conclude Barack Obama has the depth of experience," he said.
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
GRAPHIC: Republican college students from the University of Missouri at Columbia, Mo., show their support for Sen. John McCain outside the site of a rally attended by Sen. Joe Biden held in Memorial Park in Jefferson City. In backround on left is the parking lot of a Catholic church across the street that wouldn't let supporters of Mr. Biden and Sen. Barack Obama park there. [Photo by Mary F. Calvert/The Washington Times]
Obama supporters give a cheer to Mr. Biden after the rally in Memorial Park. The Obama campaign has more than 40 offices and an army of volunteers in Missouri. [Photo by Mary F. Calvert/The Washington Times]
Sen. Joe Biden (above) meets with supporters after a rally for Sen. Barack Obama at Memorial Park in Jefferson City, Mo., Thursday. Gun rights are a big issue in swing state Missouri, where a McCain sign (left) is in the yard of a supporter who lives off Highway 63 in a rural area of the state. Mr. Obama holds a slight lead over Sen. John McCain in Missouri. [2 Photos by Mary F. Calvert/The Washington Times]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
BYLINE: By John McCaslin, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE THE BELTWAY; A10
MANY USES
"It's A Girl!"
No, we're not referring to Angelina Jolie's latest adoption, rather the simple announcement found on one of the more popular 2008 presidential campaign buttons - pink in color - available through John McCain's official campaign store, GOPTrunk.com.
The button refers to the Republican Party's first female vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, although it can obviously be used again and again for whenever the stork arrives.
NO APPOINTMENT
Once upon a time it was mostly low-and-moderate income Americans who were familiar with the grass-roots organization ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, for which Barack Obama toiled as an organizer and lawyer during the 1990s.
Now, suddenly, the agenda of the activist group, which has chapters in some 110 cities across the U.S., has been thrust into the 2008 presidential campaign spotlight by Mr. Obama's opponent, Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
The latter has suggested that ACORN, by its heavy hand when dealing with financial lenders, helped fuel the mortgage industry meltdown by forcing large banks to provide low-income housing loans.
"What did ACORN in Chicago engage in?" asks one official McCain ad. "Bullying banks. Intimidation tactics. Disruption of business. ACORN forced banks to issue risky home loans. The same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today."
Legitimate charges, or more of the usual election year hype?
Inside the Beltway was contacted Monday by District-area resident LaDonna Hale Curzon, who writes: "I remember many years ago, when I was an editor for Mortgage Banking Magazine at the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, a group of ACORN members stormed MBA's reception area and staged a loud protest.
"They refused to leave when asked by a MBA staff member. The receptionist was frightened to silence. They demanded a meeting with MBA's CEO, which eventually happened."
'RADICAL SOCIALIST'
It's not John McCain, rather the National Black Republican Association that just issued the following statement:
"With Obama supporter black Democrat Congressman John Lewis leading the charge - comparing Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin to the 1960's racist Democrat George Wallace - the Obama camp has tossed a racial firebomb into the election, a blatant attempt to intimidate average Americans into voting for Sen. Barack Obama who is a far left-wing radical socialist, or risk being called a racist."
SLURPEE, PLEASE
We were amused by the latest White House pool report tracking President Bush's holiday weekend bicycle outing to Rosaryville State Park in Maryland, "an unexpected change of location from his usual Sunday bike riding places," noted Cynthia Dizikes of the Los Angeles Times.
So where did the White House plant the team of reporters that accompanied Mr. Bush in his motorcade, otherwise keeping them out of sight of the president's actual bike riding?
"The pool waited in a 7-Eleven parking lot," revealed Ms. Dizikes.
LET'S PARTY
In the "any excuse to drink" category, we've been invited to a "Last Chance to Drink for Victory" fundraiser for Barack Obama, beginning at 6:30 this evening at Porter's Dining Saloon in downtown Washington.
"Let's start by enjoying some drink specials," say organizers on Mr. Obama's official campaign site. "And bring your friends, roommates, lovers, colleagues or any other Democrat you can find. Raising a big chunk of change is important, but we also want to get everyone together so we can get fired up and ready to go."
* John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or jmccaslin@washingtontimes.com
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 13, 2008 Monday
Final Edition
Grandma's Folksy Wisdom Still Applies in 2008
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. A-17
Now that folksy is in, I don't mind admitting that the first line of Joe Biden's latest e-mail reminded me of my grandmother.
"The McCain campaign is on the ropes," Biden wrote Wednesday.
"Don't count your chickens before they hatch," my grandmother used to say.
Since Aesop wrote fables, people have known that it's dangerous to assume they'll have something before it's in their hands. That's especially true for presidential campaigns with three weeks to go until Election Day.
And yet, it's hard to fault Barack Obama and running mate Biden for a burst of confidence this close to the finish line. John McCain's campaign legs do look shaky.
Many pundits are rushing to declare the presidential election over. Some are even talking about an Obama landslide. That's because polls show Obama with a widening lead over John McCain nationally and Obama gaining ground in key states. Other polls show that people trust Obama more than McCain to fix the devastated economy. The stars seem to be aligning in Obama's favor.
Political scientist Larry Sabato said Thursday that for the first time it appears that Obama has the necessary 270 electoral votes to win, with more on the way.
Sabato left little room for a turnabout. "It is always theoretically possible that the final presidential debate or another intervening 'big event' domestically or in foreign affairs could give McCain an electoral shot in the arm, so that he can make up some or all of the lost ground," he wrote in his "Crystal Ball" newsletter.
"Yet," Sabato concluded, "time is growing short for major upheavals."
BUT IF THE 2000 election taught us anything, it's that it's not over until the Supreme Court says it's over.
Besides, this isn't the first time McCain had been declared dead. One year before he accepted the Republican presidential nomination, he was written off.
It's always risky to assume pollsters know the voters' minds, especially this year. Besides, what's the harm in waiting for people to vote and have their votes counted before anointing the winner?
After all, an October surprise could still alter the presidential race. So far, what's got everybody's attention is the stock market's shocking plunge, despite the many emergency measures aimed at quieting investor fears.
The current economic anxiety redounds to Obama's benefit, because people think he's better able to deal with the crisis, pollsters say. Plus, Obama's storied cool demeanor is serving him well, while McCain can't get his economic footing.
AT THE SECOND debate, McCain tried to put himself on the side of ordinary Americans by saying he would have the federal government buy bad home mortgages to help people stay in their homes.
The McCain campaign initially indicated that the government would buy the mortgages at a discount, which would save the taxpayers money. The next day, though, the campaign said that was a mistake, and that the government would actually pay the existing face value of the loans. This is a huge boon for the banking industry and it means higher costs for taxpayers, who, of course, are already footing the bailout bills.
Obama seized on the issue and said that McCain wanted to "massively overpay" for the mortgages. He put up a campaign ad, arguing that the country can't afford "more of the same" on the economy.
IN A PAGE from Republican presidential campaigns gone by, McCain's chief strategy seems to be to try to scare people off Obama.
"Who is the real Sen. Obama?" McCain asks at rallies. He and Sarah Palin have tied Obama to Vietnam Era-radical William Ayers and other unsavory characters. They impugn Obama's honesty as well as his policies.
The problem with the personal attacks, Michelle Obama told Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show," is that Obama has been on the campaign trail for 20 months. He survived a bitter primary campaign in which his competitors threw out many of the same questions, and he won anyway.
Besides, does McCain really want to remind voters about his friendship with political donor Charles Keating Jr? That led to McCain's being one of the senators implicated in the Keating Five scandal during the collapse of the savings and loan industry.
So, yes, Biden shouldn't count his chickens before they hatch. And McCain should remember something else my grandmother said: "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."
* Contact Marsha Mercer at mmercer@mediageneral.com or comment at mgwashington.com.
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 13, 2008 Monday
Metro Edition
PRESIDENTIAL ADS PROVIDE WINDFALL TO LOCAL STATIONS
BYLINE: By Jenny Kincaid Boone jenny.boone@roanoke.com 981-3235
SECTION: VIRGINIA; Pg. A1
The presidential battle is on in Virginia, and the fight is serving local television networks handsomely.
Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are pouring advertising dollars into three Roanoke-based television stations that cover the Roanoke Valley and parts of Central and Southwest Virginia.
Traditionally a Republican stronghold, Virginia is considered a battleground state that could go to either party in this year's presidential election.
Armed with advertising dollars to spend, Obama appears to be taking the most advantage of Virginia's swing status. Since June, the Illinois senator has purchased more than twice the number of local television ads than McCain.
At three Roanoke-based television stations, Obama's campaign has doled out $695,461 for advertising since June. Those networks are CBS affiliate WDBJ (Channel 7), NBC affiliate WSLS (Channel 10), and Fox/CW affiliates WXFR (Channel 21/27) and WWCW (Channel 5).
McCain and the Republican National Committee have spent significantly less -- approximately $283,007 -- for advertising through the same Roanoke television stations.
Statewide, the spending picture is more of the same.
Obama spent about $2 million on Virginia television ads during the week of Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, according to the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which tracks political advertising. For the same period, McCain spent $547,000 in Virginia.
The Federal Communications Commission requires that satellite television broadcasters make political advertising files public.
The Roanoke Times would not comment on how much the presidential candidates have spent on newspaper advertising. The FCC requirements do not apply to newspapers.
Candidates more often are focusing on local ad slots, rather than purchasing national ad time. In a rare move, however, Obama is buying a 30-minute ad slot for national prime time television that will air on CBS and NBC six days before the election.
Advertisement spending is strategically focused. A campaign's advertising budget, and whether a specific region is necessary for winning votes, are the factors that drive ad spending.
Instead of McCain focusing on Southwest Virginia, where a survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research last revealed that he leads Obama, McCain is pouring his energy into Hampton Roads, where he plans to visit today. It's a hotly contested area of the state for both candidates.
And as for Obama's elevated spending in Central and Southwest Virginia, "where you are weak, you spend more money," said Bob Denton, a professor of political communications at Virginia Tech.
"Obama wants to try to keep as many states in play as he can. He has the money to do so."
Obama is the first major party candidate to decline public financing in the general election, leaving him free to spend as much as he can raise.
McCain, on the other hand, is limited to spending only the $84 million in public funds he accepted to cover all his costs in September and October. He's also getting help from the RNC, which raised $66 million in September.
It's been a long time since the region saw significant presidential campaign advertisements, because 1964 was the last year that Virginia voted for a Democrat for president. That was Lyndon Johnson.
"If the two campaigns had decided that Virginia was in the bag for any one candidate, we'd be closer to that zero number," said Jeffrey Marks, president and general manager of WDBJ.
Like many stations, WDBJ budgeted a year ago for the presidential election. Advertising expenditures can be "highly volatile," making sales difficult to predict, Marks said.
Political ads make up less than 10 percent of the network's yearly sales, he said.
WSLS has received an unexpected 50 percent boost in presidential advertising sales above its planned budget for the year, said Warren Fiihr, general manager for the station.
"The advertising is stronger than we anticipated," he said. Political ad sales generally make up 7 percent to 8 percent of the station's annual revenue.
Evidence that Obama is blanketing local networks with ads also is showing up in the kinds of advertising slots that his campaign has purchased.
At Fox 21/27 and CW5, Obama has purchased ad space for many daytime slots and sports programming, which generally are uncommon segments for political advertising, said Ralph Claussen, general sales manager.
"Obama is more aggressive in this area" than McCain, Claussen said.
At Fox 21/27 and CW5, Obama's advertising expenditures are more than double what McCain has spent since June.
Through Nov. 4, expect the number of presidential campaign television ads to build.
Both campaigns have aired more negative ads than candidates during the 2004 presidential election, according to the Wisconsin Advertising Project.
From Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, according to the project's findings, nearly 100 percent of McCain campaign ads were negative, compared with 34 percent of those by Obama's campaign.
"Attack ads," used to convince people not to vote for an opponent, typically are the last alternative if a political race is tight, Denton said.
"Attack ads have more impact than positive bio ads," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Local television ad spending by presidential candidates since June:
Barack Obama:
WDBJ7: $357,848.33
WSLS: $230,862.80
FOX 21/27, CW5: $106,750
Total: $695,461.13
John McCain:
WDBJ7: $131,731.30
WSLS: $111,881.30
FOX 21/27, CW5: $39,395
Total: $283,007.60
Source: Area television stations
LOAD-DATE: October 15, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
Presidential ads provide windfall to local stations
BYLINE: Jenny Kincaid Boone, The Roanoke Times, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Oct. 13--The presidential battle is on in Virginia, and the fight is serving local television networks handsomely.
Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are pouring advertising dollars into three Roanoke-based television stations that cover the Roanoke Valley and parts of Central and Southwest Virginia.
Traditionally a Republican stronghold, Virginia is considered a battleground state that could go to either party in this year's presidential election.
Armed with advertising dollars to spend, Obama appears to be taking the most advantage of Virginia's swing status. Since June, the Illinois senator has purchased more than twice the number of local television ads than McCain.
At three Roanoke-based television stations, Obama's campaign has doled out $695,461 for advertising since June. Those networks are CBS affiliate WDBJ (Channel 7), NBC affiliate WSLS (Channel 10), and Fox/CW affiliates WXFR (Channel 21/27) and WWCW (Channel 5).
McCain and the Republican National Committee have spent significantly less -- approximately $283,007 -- for advertising through the same Roanoke television stations.
Statewide, the spending picture is more of the same.
Obama spent about $2 million on Virginia television ads during the week of Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, according to the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which tracks political advertising. For the same period, McCain spent $547,000 in Virginia.
The Federal Communications Commission requires that satellite television broadcasters make political advertising files public.
The Roanoke Times would not comment on how much the presidential candidates have spent on newspaper advertising. The FCC requirements do not apply to newspapers.
Candidates more often are focusing on local ad slots, rather than purchasing national ad time. In a rare move, however, Obama is buying a 30-minute ad slot for national prime time television that will air on CBS and NBC six days before the election.
Advertisement spending is strategically focused. A campaign's advertising budget, and whether a specific region is necessary for winning votes, are the factors that drive ad spending.
Instead of McCain focusing on Southwest Virginia, where a survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research last revealed that he leads Obama, McCain is pouring his energy into Hampton Roads, where he plans to visit today. It's a hotly contested area of the state for both candidates.
And as for Obama's elevated spending in Central and Southwest Virginia, "where you are weak, you spend more money," said Bob Denton, a professor of political communications at Virginia Tech.
"Obama wants to try to keep as many states in play as he can. He has the money to do so."
Obama is the first major party candidate to decline public financing in the general election, leaving him free to spend as much as he can raise.
McCain, on the other hand, is limited to spending only the $84 million in public funds he accepted to cover all his costs in September and October. He's also getting help from the RNC, which raised $66 million in September.
It's been a long time since the region saw significant presidential campaign advertisements, because 1964 was the last year that Virginia voted for a Democrat for president. That was Lyndon Johnson.
"If the two campaigns had decided that Virginia was in the bag for any one candidate, we'd be closer to that zero number," said Jeffrey Marks, president and general manager of WDBJ.
Like many stations, WDBJ budgeted a year ago for the presidential election. Advertising expenditures can be "highly volatile," making sales difficult to predict, Marks said.
Political ads make up less than 10 percent of the network's yearly sales, he said.
WSLS has received an unexpected 50 percent boost in presidential advertising sales above its planned budget for the year, said Warren Fiihr, general manager for the station.
"The advertising is stronger than we anticipated," he said. Political ad sales generally make up 7 percent to 8 percent of the station's annual revenue.
Evidence that Obama is blanketing local networks with ads also is showing up in the kinds of advertising slots that his campaign has purchased.
At Fox 21/27 and CW5, Obama has purchased ad space for many daytime slots and sports programming, which generally are uncommon segments for political advertising, said Ralph Claussen, general sales manager.
"Obama is more aggressive in this area" than McCain, Claussen said.
At Fox 21/27 and CW5, Obama's advertising expenditures are more than double what McCain has spent since June.
Through Nov. 4, expect the number of presidential campaign television ads to build.
Both campaigns have aired more negative ads than candidates during the 2004 presidential election, according to the Wisconsin Advertising Project.
From Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, according to the project's findings, nearly 100 percent of McCain campaign ads were negative, compared with 34 percent of those by Obama's campaign.
"Attack ads," used to convince people not to vote for an opponent, typically are the last alternative if a political race is tight, Denton said.
"Attack ads have more impact than positive bio ads," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
To see more of The Roanoke Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.roanoke.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Roanoke Times, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081013-RO-PRESIDENTIAL-ADS-20081013
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
The Washington Post
October 13, 2008 Monday
Suburban Edition
On the Bus, But With No Reason to Go?
BYLINE: Howard Kurtz; Washington Post Staff Writer
The reporters waded gingerly into two-inch-deep mud and settled behind scratched wooden tables as Barack Obama was being introduced to more than 10,000 screaming fans at the state fairgrounds here.
Before the Democratic nominee took the podium, the text of his speech arrived by BlackBerry. The address was carried by CNN, Fox and MSNBC. While he was still delivering his applause lines, an Atlantic blogger posted excerpts. And despite the huge foot-stomping crowd that could barely be glimpsed from the media tent, most reporters remained hunched over their laptops.
Does the campaign trail still matter much in an age of digital warfare? Or is it now a mere sideshow, meant to provide the media with pretty pictures of colorful crowds while the guts of the contest unfold elsewhere? And if so, are the boys (and girls) on the bus spinning their wheels?
"Anything interesting that happens on the road is going to be eaten up before you can get to it," says Slate correspondent John Dickerson. "By the time you see the papers, you feel like you know it all."
On the road, some of the nation's top print journalists morph into bloggers who post paragraphs on each mini-development, giving them a more stenographic role that leaves less time for actual reporting, or even thinking. Obama advisers have concluded that newspaper and magazine stories no longer have the same resonance but that a brief item by, say, Politico bloggers can spread like wildfire.
With a single correspondent's campaign travel costing as much as $10,000 a week, the number of cash-strapped news organizations willing to pony up has been dwindling in recent years. Only five newspapers -- the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune -- are traveling regularly with Obama and John McCain. The big regional papers, USA Today and Time magazine are there only intermittently, and Newsweek, which had been a constant presence on the trail, pulled back last week for financial reasons. (The networks, which used young off-air "embeds" during much of the primary season, now have front-line correspondents on board to do daily live shots.)
In the slower-paced, pre-cable age, what newspaper reporters wrote each day had major impact. These days, the candidates' rallies are often carried live on cable. Top strategists hold dueling conference calls for the press and send out the audio for those who miss it. Each new ad is instantly on YouTube, each new e-mail assault splashed across the Web. What, then, is the value of being on the plane?
"Having a blog is a terrific bonus for me because I get to put out everything I know in a constant way," says Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times. But, she says, "being on the plane is very, very expensive and does not necessarily provide stuff you could not get elsewhere. When you have limited resources, it's a corner to cut."
The greatest advantage of campaign travel, journalists say, is access to senior officials who rarely return calls or e-mails. Beyond that, says Chicago Tribune reporter Jill Zuckman, "you look at a campaign with a more critical eye when you're there. You get a better sense of crowds and enthusiasm levels and mood that you cannot get off TV."
Lack of access is accepted as a given. Obama held his last press availability two weeks ago, while McCain -- once renowned for his nonstop schmoozing with journalists -- has held one brief news conference in a month and a half.
Boston Globe reporter Sasha Issenberg, who covers McCain, says he gets more richly textured stories on the road. But, he says, "I haven't had any personal interaction with McCain for months. In any reasonable cost-benefit analysis . . . it's probably getting harder to justify. When we're on the plane and there's no TV and you can't read blogs, we're more walled off from the story we're covering than I would be if I were in my bureau."
David Broder, the Post veteran who covered his first White House campaign in 1960, says the daily speeches chronicled by journalists were once newsworthy. But campaign officials eventually "learned that that let the reporters decide what the sound bite of the day was. They could control that by shrinking the options that reporters had. You went to the abandoned mill or polluted stream and delivered your two sentences, and that was it for the day."
As recently as 2000, Broder recalls having dinner with McCain three nights in a row while working on a profile. Now, he says, "I notice that in our stories we routinely start out writing about Obama and McCain, but very quickly we're quoting some spokesman who's sent us an e-mail commenting on what Obama and McCain have said."
A reporter's observation can occasionally start a brush fire. In Dana Milbank's Post column last week, a couple of sentences about a crowd at a Sarah Palin event hurling obscenities -- and in one case a racial epithet -- at journalists led to days of stories, sometimes overblown, about anger and ugliness at GOP rallies.
Last Wednesday -- the day after the second presidential debate -- was typical for journalists traveling with the campaigns. As reporters flew with Obama from Nashville to Indianapolis, chief spokesman Robert Gibbs did not come back on the plane to spin reporters. The reason: He was napping, after an early-morning MSNBC debate with McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace.
Grabbed on the tarmac, Gibbs said the financial crisis would force the campaign to talk about the economy every day until the election. "This is one of the few times when a presidential campaign has been overtaken by events," he said. "It's even subsuming the debates at this point. You've just got to ride the wave."
The day's only event -- the only thing resembling "news" -- was the noontime rally in normally red-state Indiana. An Obama press aide said the senator from Illinois would sharpen his debate attack on McCain's plan to tax employer-provided health insurance, but the reporters didn't seem to care much.
A nine-paragraph post appeared on the New York Times blog two hours later, saying that Obama, who did not "break any new policy ground," had said "that he could endure four more weeks of Republican attacks 'but America can't take four more years of John McCain's Bush policies.' " A Post blog, updated later in the afternoon, said Obama had delivered "a confident and inspirational speech that asked Americans to 'believe in each other' as the country faces a historic challenge to fix the economy."
The press corps remained in the muddy tent for two hours, in part because Obama was sitting down for an interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson.
Dickerson, a former Time correspondent and one of the few who ventured outside the tent, says occasional travel is valuable. But, he says, "you have to spend a lot of time not on the road, or else you can never think four feet off the ground. It's ridiculous to be on the bus, as we all are, have events unfold in front of you and totally ignore them. You sit and watch a rally, and you're not paying any attention to it because you're writing a story about a swing state 600 miles away."
On the subsequent flight to Chicago, Obama spokeswoman Linda Douglass came into the press section and invited questions. She criticized McCain's new mortgage-bailout proposal, which had already been the subject of an e-blast from the Obama campaign. NBC's Lee Cowan asked about a slam hours earlier by McCain's wife, Cindy, who said "the day that Senator Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body."
"John McCain has also voted for cutting funds for the troops," Douglass said, adding: "I understand she's got a son and she's worried." No one followed up.
While virtually every detail of the day could have been gleaned back home, several journalists -- such as John Heilemann of New York magazine -- noticed that Obama seemed to hit his stride in talking about the economy's impact on the middle class.
"One of the things I got out of the speech is how much more fluid he is talking about this stuff and how much the financial crisis has helped him," Heilemann says. "I've been critical of Obama for not ever developing an economic narrative, a story about what's going on in America. He obviously gets criticized for being too professorial. He's still not 100 percent there, but he's found a touch, a kind of soft populism."
It was the sort of observation that doesn't show up in the box score but can shape perceptions of the game.
Sympathetic Journalism
A Michelle Obama profile in the women's magazine More describes her as "casually elegant," "warm" and "focused." The headline: "Camelot 2.0."
The author, Geraldine Brooks, mentions that she first met the potential first lady at a Martha's Vineyard fundraiser, as a donor to her husband's campaign.
"I certainly pointed it out to the assigning editor and editor in chief and said it would have to be disclosed," Brooks says. "I was intrigued by her." Her sympathies, Brooks says, were "made pretty obvious by the fact that I was at a high-dollar fundraiser for him the year before."
LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Alex Brandon -- Associated Press; Candidates' speeches, like this one by Barack Obama last Wednesday, end up on YouTube, reducing the need for traveling reporters.
IMAGE; By Brian Snyder -- Reuters; McCain aide Mark Salter talks to reporters in New York. The traveling press corps often finds itself with no access to the candidates, and some reporters feel that the demand for instant blogging has turned them into stenographers.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 13, 2008 Monday
Regional Edition
Clintons Join Biden to Campaign for Obama in Scranton;
Democratic All-Stars Take Nominee's Case to Blue-Collar Area That Spawned His Running Mate but Voted for His Primary Foe
BYLINE: Robert Barnes; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02
DATELINE: SCRANTON, Pa., Oct. 12
Everything in politics is recyclable. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. left this state while in grade school, but he can still talk of "we Pennsylvanians." Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's childhood summers at a nearby lake can be turned into the declaration that "here in northeast Pennsylvania, we don't go down without a fight."
Even one of Clinton's favorite lines from her historic, this-close race for the Democratic nomination can be reworked for the man who defeated her, Sen. Barack Obama.
"It took a Democratic president to clean up after the last President Bush; it's going to take a Democratic president to clean up after this president," Clinton said Sunday at a loud rally here, where she appeared with vice presidential nominee Biden.
Back when she was the front-runner for her party's nomination, she used to say it took Clintons to clean up after the Bushes.
Those Clintons were both here to stump for Obama in a part of Pennsylvania that remains cool toward the Democrat despite increasingly favorable signs elsewhere in the state. As has been the case since Obama became the nominee, the assignment seemed harder on Bill Clinton than on the woman who actually lost the race.
To be fair, the former president's job was to introduce his wife, so he mentioned the word "Obama" only four times in his eight-minute speech. One of those came when he said he had to leave early because "I have been dispatched by the Obama-Biden campaign to go to Virginia, where we're going to win for the first time in 40 years."
It was more of a "Joe and Hillary" day anyway, billed as a homecoming for a favorite son and goddaughter.
Scranton is Biden's home town, even if he left more than 50 years ago and represents Delaware, and his wife, Jill, was born in Pennsylvania as well. Hillary Rodham's grandfather worked in the lace mills, her father is buried here, and she spent childhood summers in a family cabin on a lake nearby. She made the connection stick in April, when she resoundingly defeated Obama in the state's primary.
The long battle turned Scranton's 75,000 residents into the most politically pampered populace in the country. The local Democratic leader unblushingly describes the blue-collar city as the "epicenter" of American politics, and it's hard to prove him wrong.
Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, has been to this region twice since securing the nomination; his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, mentioned the city in her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, and on Tuesday she will be in the same indoor athletics complex where Sunday's speeches took place.
Many in the crowd wore "Hillary Sent Me" buttons, and the senator received a louder reception than did the former president. She was unsparing in her praise of both men on the Democratic ticket.
"Barack Obama and Joe Biden are for you, and that's why I am for Barack Obama and Joe Biden," Clinton said. "My friends, this is an all-hands-on-deck moment for America. We've got to work hard, and we've got to work together. This is a fight for the future, and it is a fight we must win."
Clinton said she looked forward to "being on the back lawn of the White House, on a beautiful day like this, when President Obama signs into law quality, affordable health care for you and you and you."
On that day, Biden responded, Obama will hand the signing pen to Clinton for her work on the issue. He lavishly praised the senator from New York, saying, "Hillary and I truly, truly are friends."
Biden also delivered a tough speech about his "old friend" McCain, hammering the Republican for his reaction to the financial meltdown. He reminded the audience, in what has become a standard Democratic repetition, that McCain's initial response Sept. 15 to the turmoil on Wall Street was that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy were "sound," followed several hours later by his saying that the economy was in "crisis."
"Folks, that's what we Catholics call an epiphany," the senator from Delaware said to laughter. "The problem with John McCain -- God love him, as my mother would say -- John's epiphany wasn't that he saw the light. What John saw was the presidency receding from his grasp."
Hillary Clinton is scheduled to campaign Monday in the "collar" suburbs around Philadelphia, where McCain is also scheduled to go this week. But Democrats are brimming with enthusiasm about the state, which Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) narrowly won in the 2004 election.
McCain had hoped to capitalize on some of the same misgivings about Obama that Clinton had exploited in the primary -- especially his remarks at a private fundraiser in California, when he said small-town voters sometimes "get bitter" and "cling to guns or religion" because of their frustrations.
But public polls in Pennsylvania show Obama with a double-digit lead. Obama made four campaign stops in Philadelphia on Saturday and has flooded the airwaves there with commercials. Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a strong Clinton supporter now working hard for Obama, said he believes the Democrat is in surprisingly good shape.
Obama is "doing as well in central Pennsylvania as any Democrat has done in a long time," said Rendell, who said economic worries have trumped any cultural concerns about Obama.
Democratic voter registration is up about 500,000 since 2004, and there are 1.2 million more Democrats than Republicans in the state.
The recent news has been such that Hillary Clinton felt the need to issue a warning.
"Sure, the polls show Barack and Joe ahead now, and that's good news," she said, but "nobody should be lulled into any false sense of security."
She noted there have been 10 presidential elections since she became active in politics, and Democrats "have only won three of them." She paused. "And, of course, Bill won two out of the three."
LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Jimmy May -- Associated Press; Bill Clinton speaks at an Obama-Biden rally in Scranton, Pa. With him on the podium are Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was born in Scranton; his wife, Jill Biden; and the former president's wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
October 13, 2008 Monday
Correction Appended
Regional Edition
Down, Down, Down East for the GOP?
BYLINE: Chris Cillizza And Ben Pershing
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
Amid signs that the Senate playing field has badly eroded for GOPers in the past two weeks, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is preparing to launch ads in Maine -- a contest until recently regarded as a long-shot pickup for Democrats.
The ads, which are set to go up early this week in the Portland media market at a cost of $150,000, are the first tangible evidence that Sen. Susan Collins (R) may not be shielded from the strong wind blowing in the face of Republicans nationally.
The NRSC did not respond to a request for comment about their latest ad buy, but Matt Miller, communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was only too happy to cast the new commercials in Maine as a sign that another race had come into play for his side.
"Tom Allen has cut Susan Collins's lead in half in the past month, and now even the NRSC recognizes that he is showing momentum with three weeks to go," said Miller, pointing to a poll earlier this month that showed Collins at 49 percent, compared with 41 percent for Allen, a Democratic congressman. (Barack Obama led John McCain 52 percent to 35 percent in the state, according to the survey, conducted by Democratic pollster Mark Mellman.)
Collins, first elected to the Senate in 1996 and reelected easily six years later, is a political moderate who came into the election cycle with extremely high job approval ratings, and Allen struggled for months -- and months -- to make any dent in despite running a solid and well-financed campaign.
But the focus on the financial crisis gripping Wall Street in recent weeks has caused a general movement toward Democrats nationwide.
Republican senators in Oregon, North Carolina, Kentucky, Minnesota and Georgia have seen their poll numbers sink during that time, and neutral handicappers, such as Stu Rothenberg and Charlie Cook, have revised their predictions of Democratic gains significantly upward. Rothenberg, in his column for Roll Call newspaper, went so far as to say that the holy grail of a filibuster-proof 60-seat Democratic majority is a possibility.
Already two Republican-held open seats in Virginia and New Mexico are close to certain takeovers for Democrats. Two other seats in Colorado and New Hampshire lean in the direction of Democrats, and in a handful of other contests, in such states as Oregon, Alaska and Minnesota, the races are dead heats.
While gains for Democrats are a virtual certainty given the national playing field, if they want to pick up the nine seats they need to get to 60, the party must find a way to win in a state such as Maine (or Kentucky or Mississippi). The NRSC's decision to take to the airwaves in support of Collins is a sure signal that no Republican incumbent is safe in an environment as toxic as this one is for the GOP.
Bzzzzz!
With the final presidential debate scheduled for this week and the last session -- the "town hall" in Nashville -- garnering less-than-stellar reviews, organizers could be looking for ways to shake things up when John McCain and Barack Obama meet at Long Island's Hofstra University. The solution might just be in Indiana.
Last week, Larry Shickles, the Republican Party chairman in Indiana's 9th Congressional District, proposed a twist for the Oct. 21 debate between Rep. Baron P. Hill (D) and his GOP challenger, Michael E. Sodrel. No, Shickles did not suggest a longer "discussion period" or using questions from YouTube. He wanted a different addition -- polygraph machines.
"While this format may be unusual, I feel strongly that voters need to be able to make a clear decision without all the usual spin," Shickles wrote in a letter to his local Democratic counterpart, according to the Associated Press, suggesting that the candidates be hooked to the "lie detector" machines during the event.
Alas, it is not to be. Alan Johnson, dean of Vincennes University's Jasper campus, which will host the debate, told the Herald newspaper of Jasper: "Our planning committee worked up the format and rules, and we are not inviting negotiations from the candidates." (This despite the fact that Sodrel, a former congressman looking to regain his old seat in his fourth consecutive matchup against Hill, actually agreed to the proposal.)
Putting aside the debatable accuracy of polygraph machines, wouldn't strapping McCain and Obama into the contraptions make for a better debate on Wednesday?
Tweets, Short and Sweet
Bored with the second presidential debate last Tuesday night in Nashville? (And who wouldn't have been?) You should have checked out The Fix's Twittering of the proceedings -- as we dispensed observations on Life, the Universe and Everything. If you missed it, never fear. Some of our favorite tweets from the debate that was are below and you still have 48 hours to sign up for the Fix feed (http://www.twitter.com/thefix) before the final presidential set-to at Hofstra University on Wednesday night.
· "Obama forces McCain to explain his 'bomb Iran' comments. A nice moment for the Illinois Senator."
· "Lots of talk about 'fundamental differences' from both McCain and Obama. Trying to draw the lines for undecided voters."
· "McCain just called Obama 'that one.' Um, odd."
· "McCain brings out the big guns -- compares Obama to Hoover. The president not the vacuum."
2 DAYS: The granddaddy of them all -- the third and final presidential debate -- will go down in New York. Can McCain change the narrative? Does he need to?
16 DAYS: The cash-flush Obama campaign is buying 30 minutes of precious prime-time television on CBS and NBC to make a final appeal to voters just six days before the election. The last person to do that? Ross Perot!
LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2008
CORRECTION-DATE: October 14, 2008
CORRECTION: · The Monday Fix column in the Oct. 13 A-section incorrectly reported that the National Republican Senatorial Committee was launching ads in Maine's U.S. Senate race. The NRSC purchased ad time in the Portland, Maine, media market, but that expenditure was intended for New Hampshire's Senate race.
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Mark Wilson -- Getty Images; The second Obama-McCain debate made some long for polygraphs to spice up the third one. But you'll have to settle for The Fix's Twitter feed.
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October 13, 2008 Monday
Correction Appended
Suburban Edition
Stuck In the Muck;
Mudslinging Isn't New. Here's the Messy Truth.
BYLINE: Libby Copeland; Washington Post Staff Writer
You want to talk dirty politics? Oh, we'll talk dirty. We'll talk about . . . 1800!
Thomas Jefferson was attacked by ministers who accused him of being an "infidel" and an "unbeliever." A Federalist cartoon depicted him as a drunken anarchist, and the president of Yale warned that if Jefferson came to power, "we may see our wives and daughters the victims of legal prostitution." A Connecticut newspaper warned that his election would mean "murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will openly be taught and practiced" -- though the paper, which is now the Hartford Courant, did apologize some years later.
In 1993. "You turned out to be a good influence on America," the editors wrote. Whoops! Never mind.
John Adams, the sitting president, got hit with his share of slung mud that year. James Callender, a journalist who was in league with Jefferson, told the country that Adams was a rageful, lying, warmongering fellow, a "repulsive pedant" and "gross hypocrite" who behaved neither like a man nor like a woman but instead possessed a "hideous hermaphroditical character." There was also a nasty rumor that Adams had sent his veep to Europe to bring back four mistresses, two for each of them.
Today's handwringers, who are disgusted by the tone of modern political campaigns, might be reassured (or slightly depressed) to learn that we've always been this way. Almost from the birth of the nation, presidential campaigns have been filled with vitriol and deception.
"Everybody always assumes there was a golden age of presidential campaigning that occurred 20 years ago," says Gil Troy, an American history scholar at McGill University. "Almost from the start, American politics had its two sides -- it had its Sunday morning high church sermon side, and it had its Saturday night rough-and-tumble ugly side."
Things have gotten negative in this year's presidential race lately, and there's been much discussion of when negative becomes dirty, and who's being dirty, and who's willing to get even dirtier. Reporters have been counting the negative ads, which are numerous on each side, and John McCain's wife has accused Barack Obama of conducting "the dirtiest campaign in American history," while Obama aide Robert Gibbs has said, "If people want to get down in the mud, we're prepared to get dirty."
Will anybody achieve the great lows of the 19th century, though?
The years "1800 and 1828 and the one against Lincoln, I think -- those were worse than anything we've had," says historian Paul F. Boller, who has written about the history of dirty politics and who, at 91, takes the long view of things.
Back in the day, political rhetoric was, as David Mark puts it in "Dirty Politics," "shriller, hyperbolic, and downright mean." It was racist -- more than one candidate was rumored as being half-this or part-that -- as well as hostile to certain religions and deeply personal. It was also occasionally bizarre. Historians differ on whether Jefferson was ridiculed for being raised on a diet of "hoe-cake" and "fricasseed bullfrog." During Martin Van Buren's presidency, a Pennsylvania congressman accused him of being so decadent that he landscaped the White House grounds into hills resembling "an Amazon's bosom."
Oh, "John Quincy Adams was accused of pimping for the czar," Troy says. Really. The czar of Russia. The press backing Jackson labeled Adams "The Pimp."
As historian Kathleen Hall Jamieson writes in "Packaging the Presidency," the Founding Fathers intended the nascent nation's elections to be a dignified, deliberative activity, carried out by a small number of wealthy, well-educated men. "The ideal unraveled rapidly." Vitriolic handbills and fiercely partisan newspapers took up one side or another. Laws about who could vote opened up the franchise -- somewhat, at least. Party identification was strong. Political feelings were expressed in the strong language of the time, and even people we think of now as above politics were not spared. To wit: George Washington.
"If ever a nation was debauched by a man, the American nation has been debauched by Washington," Benjamin Franklin's grandson wrote in 1796.
Or Abe Lincoln. According to an 1864 edition of Harper's Weekly, Lincoln was disparaged as a "Filthy Story-Teller," a "Buffoon," a "Usurper," a "Monster" and a "Land-Pirate," whatever that is. His enemies also described him as "A Long, Lean, Lank, Lantern-Jawed, High Cheeked-Boned Spavined Rail-Splitting Stallion," which actually makes Lincoln sound kind of hot, except for the "spavined" part. (We looked it up. It invokes horses with diseased joints, or more generally, decrepitude and decay.)
As Jamieson notes in another book, "Dirty Politics," long before there was potent television imagery juxtaposing an innocent girl with the threat of nuclear war (LBJ's '64 Daisy ad), or tying a menacing-looking black murderer to a Democratic candidate (the '88 Willie Horton ad), presidential campaigns were thick with oversimplified attacks aiming at the gut, not the intellect.
"Campaigns generally ally the favored candidate with things uncritically accepted, such as flag and freedom," Jamieson writes, "and tie the opponent to such viscerally noxious things as the murder of innocent men, women and children."
In the 1828 election, Jamieson writes, Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams got into a tiff we might call the War of the Handbills. Jackson's supporters distributed handbills portraying Adams as a nasty dude who drove away a "crippled old soldier" who asked for charity -- drove him away with a horsewhip, no less. Adams's supporters put out handbills undermining Jackson's reputation as a military hero by painting the general's execution of six deserting soldiers as a bloodthirsty act, invoking the image of gallant young men "welter[ing] in their gore!!" Jackson's supporters replied with handbills parodying their opponents' handbills, suggesting that Jackson had not executed the soldiers but "swallowed them whole, coffins and all, without the slightest attempt at mastication!!!!!!"
They were big on exclamation marks back in the day.
Joseph Cummins, the author of "Anything for a Vote," has compiled a list of top 10 historic smears and rumors, which he delivers Letterman-style over the phone from his home in Maplewood, N.J., counting down to one. Among the classics are "You're not tough enough," "You'll drive us into war," "You're too old" (sound familiar?), "You're an egghead" (sound familiar?) and "You're drunk all the time" -- the last of which, Cummins says, was more popular in the 19th century, for whatever reason. There were also the sexual accusations, like "You're a slut," which is Cummins's playful way of characterizing an enduring smear that has usually amounted to You're an immoral degenerate who has either preyed on a poor maiden or enjoys the company of a lascivious and money-grubbing bimbo, depending on how the love interest is portrayed.
There's also what Cummins calls "You're at least a little bit gay." When he served in the House, James Buchanan, a bachelor, and his housemate, Sen. William King of Alabama, were both the subject of such rumors. According to historian Jean H. Baker, King was known as "Aunt Fancy," while Buchanan was, in the words of Andrew Jackson, "Aunt Nancy."
In 1835, Davy Crockett -- who briefly considered a run for the presidency -- released a ghost-written campaign tract with one of those really long titles they used to use back then: "The life of Martin Van Buren, heir-apparent to the 'government,' and the appointed successor of General Andrew Jackson, Containing every authentic particular by which his extraordinary character has been formed, With a concise history . . . " You get the idea.
Inside, Crockett made note of Van Buren's baldness, described his face as "a good deal shrivelled," compared Van Buren to "dung" and described his personality as "secret, sly, selfish, cold, calculating." Then he got nasty. Van Buren, he wrote, was "a dandy. When he enters the senate chamber in the morning, he struts and swaggers like a crow in the gutter. He is laced up in corsets, such as women in a town wear, and, if possible, tighter than the best of them."
Tough rhetoric, though it's hard to say how many people would have heard it back when it was made. For the bulk of the 19th century, it was considered unseemly for presidential candidates to make speeches on their own behalf. The arguments over whom to vote for were circulated by surrogates and in written documents. As Jamieson points out in an interview, without television and radio and the Internet and with fewer people able to read, it's hard to gauge how many people heard the dirty stuff.
"That was an entirely different world," Jamieson says. "How do you measure the effect of a broadside? We don't know how many people saw it."
But in those instances when the candidates did speak, and an audience did hear them, it appears Americans back then -- just like Americans now -- had a taste for blood.
In 1858, during the first of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, as the Senate candidates argued over issues like the Dred Scott decision and the Missouri Compromise, their remarks about each other were thick with sarcasm. The crowd loved it. Much like the crowds at modern-day rallies, where people are apt to shout things like "Booo!" (about the opponent) and "You're a hottie!" (about Sarah Palin), the audience at the first Lincoln-Douglas debate erupted with cries like "hark" and "humbug" and "hit him again." At one point, as Lincoln prepared to read a document, a heckler cried, "Put on your specs!"
"Yes, sir, I am obliged to do so," Lincoln replied.
Stephen Douglas spoke condescendingly of Lincoln "following the example and lead of all the little abolition orators, who go around and lecture in the basements of schools and churches." He allowed that Lincoln had some good points -- as a young man, Lincoln had been top-notch at "running a foot-race" and "could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together." (Here we imagine Douglas doing a hearty 19th-century chortle.)
Lincoln responded by correcting the assertions of "Judge Douglas" on several matters, allowing that he was certain Douglas wasn't intending to lie. At one point, he said, "I know the judge is a great man, while I am only a small man" -- and then proceeded to gut him.
He also compared Douglas to an "obstinate animal" and added, "I mean no disrespect."
LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2008
CORRECTION-DATE: October 14, 2008
CORRECTION: · An Oct. 13 Style article on negative politics misstated the title of a book by David Mark. It is called "Going Dirty," not "Dirty Politics."
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IMAGE; Upi; Both George Washington, at center in left picture, and John Adams, at right, were subject to some harsh language. James Buchanan, above, was referred to as "Aunt Nancy."
IMAGE; National Portrait Gallery
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SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A21
John McCain likes Barack Obama. He admires and respects Obama. He believes Obama is "very impressive, he's thoughtful, he's centrist." Obama has "probably got a great future." He is "a very honest and fine person" -- "absolutely" qualified to be president.
How do we know McCain feels this way? Because he said so, in public comments ranging from 2005 to as recently as May. And as the McCain campaign grew uglier last week -- casting Obama as dangerous, dishonest and un-American -- it was tempting to imagine the campaign McCain might have waged if he had based it on the respect for his opponent, and for the process, that he had long professed.
Last week, for example, McCain was angrily promising to "name the names" of those who caused the nation's worst financial crisis in decades. He was blaming Obama and his "cronies," and the "corruption" that Obama had "abetted" in Washington. Meanwhile, almost as if there were no meltdown, his running mate remained stuck on attacking Obama for "palling around with terrorists."
But imagine if McCain had selected for his running mate not a partisan attack dog but someone with deep knowledge of the economy and a record of reaching across the aisle.
Imagine if McCain himself had decided to respond to this crisis as an American first, a candidate second. "Yes," he might have said, "Democrats contributed to our problems with their lobbyist-fueled defense of Fannie and Freddie. But let's not pretend that Alan Greenspan, Phil Gramm, George W. Bush -- and John McCain -- weren't part of this, too. Warren Buffett saw this coming, but not many of the rest of us did. Let's postpone the recriminations and work together to fix this thing."
Last week, McCain was asking darkly, "Who is the real Senator Obama?" Imagine, instead, if he had followed his own advice from the spring, when he repudiated a state party attack ad that he said "distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats." Imagine if he were challenging Obama on those policy differences.
I'm sure, in the crazed intensity of a presidential campaign, it's easy to start believing your consultants and television ads -- believing that the other guy is dangerous and that only you can save the country. That must be especially true when the other guy is insulting you. The mud flies both ways in this campaign, with Obama and his allies relentlessly pounding McCain as out of touch, erratic, dishonest and, over and over again, dishonorable.
And honor is at the core of McCain's self-image. He's been running for president, more on than off, for almost a decade, but his determination hasn't had much to do with a highly defined ideology, program or set of policies. What underlies his ambition are values: service, patriotism, duty, honor.
It may be that it's easier for such a campaign to get blown off course. In an exceptionally pro-Democratic year, against an exceptionally unflappable opponent, it's not surprising that a campaign without bedrock policy goals would try first one thing, then another, with one of those things being character assassination.
I certainly can't prove that a McCain campaign built on respect and attention to issues would be faring better than the real thing. Without Sarah Palin to rally the base, and without the insidious questioning of Obama's patriotism, McCain might be even further behind.
But he also might be doing better -- and he might be happier, too. That, at least, is one way to interpret an intriguing exchange that took place at a rally in Minnesota on Friday.
A woman took the microphone to say that Obama could not be trusted because he is an "Arab" -- not a surprising misconception, given the Republicans who have taken to stressing Obama's middle name, Hussein. But McCain rebuked her: "No, ma'am, he's a decent family man, a citizen, who I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that's what this campaign is all about."
It's not what this campaign is all about, and as McCain was speaking, his campaign ads were calling Obama a liar. But it's what the campaign could have been about, if McCain had really wanted it that way.
fredhiatt@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Gerald Herbert -- Associated Press; John McCain at a rally in Davenport, Iowa, on Saturday.
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October 13, 2008 Monday
Regional Edition
The World Vote;
Barack Obama is almost universally favored over John McCain outside the United States. Should that matter to Americans?
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A20
BY NOW it is well known that if the rest of the world had a vote, Barack Obama would be the next U.S. president. Polls and studies by the Pew foundation, BBC and the Gallup organization have shown that Europeans, Latin Americans, Africans and Asians not only favor Mr. Obama overwhelmingly over John McCain but believe he will improve U.S. relations with the rest of the world. Americans seem to be attracted by such findings; polls here show that many voters are concerned about the deterioration of U.S. prestige during the Bush administration and want the next president to restore it. This invites a question: If Mr. Obama were elected, how likely would he be to fulfill those high expectations? And could he really deliver results that are beyond the grasp of Mr. McCain? The answer is not as obvious as the survey results suggest.
One caveat comes in the report of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which points out that Obamamania is largely absent in the region where U.S. influence most needs a boost: the Middle East. Only 34 percent of Lebanese, 31 percent of Egyptians and 22 percent of Jordanians said they have confidence in Mr. Obama to do the right thing in world affairs; in Pakistan the figure was 10 percent. Israel is one of the few countries in the world where at least some polls have shown Mr. McCain leading Mr. Obama. Many Israelis fear that Mr. Obama will be too soft on Iran; many Arabs predict that he will be too soft on Israel. The new administration, whether that of Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain, may have to accept anti-Americanism in Pakistan as the price of staying on the offensive against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Mr. Obama's huge popularity in Western Europe -- his favorable ratings are over 80 percent in France and Germany -- seems to reflect an expectation that the Democrat would reverse the policies of President Bush. But Mr. Obama favors sending large numbers of additional troops to Afghanistan, while public opinion in every NATO country but Britain favors withdrawal. At the governmental level, some senior officials in Germany, France and Britain say that they object to Mr. Obama's plan to pursue negotiations with Iran unconditionally; the European policy has been to require Tehran first to suspend work on its nuclear program. Both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain are likely to alleviate two of the largest irritants in U.S.-European relations by closing the Guantanamo Bay prison and adopting a serious program to combat climate change.
The outpouring of enthusiasm for Mr. Obama in places such as Berlin -- where a smaller share of people say they have favorable views of the United States than in Russia or China -- seems to reflect a longing to repair a broken relationship. An Obama presidency offers the possibility of building on those sentiments. Mr. McCain would have to start cold. Neither may have a good chance of obtaining more European troops for Afghanistan or major new sanctions against Iran. But on the intangible but critical question of American prestige and the willingness to accept U.S. leadership that comes with it, Mr. Obama has more to offer.
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The best of times, the worst of times on the stump
BYLINE: By Lanny J. Davis, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; PURPLE NATION; A04
In the past few weeks of the presidential race, we have seen the best and the worst of the two campaigns. While I perceive that the campaign of Sen. John McCain has been more negative, even a strong supporter of Sen. Barack Obama such as myself must concede there have been some bad moments on our side too.
The common theme seems to be that in both campaigns there is sometimes a disconnect between the candidates' personal campaigning versus what their campaign organizations are saying in paid ads and hateful outbursts by some overzealous supporters.
Here are some examples on both sides:
* Bad moment: Mr. McCain's campaign is running an ad that calls Mr. Obama a "liar" because he denies being sympathetic or closely associated with William Ayers, who was involved with terrorist bombings in the late '60s as one of the founders of the Weather Underground. But the ad misleadingly omits Mr. Obama's having called Mr. Ayers' conduct back then "detestable" - and I agree with that.
What makes this ad worse is that it directly violates what Mr. McCain has long stood for and taught me personally years ago: the importance of always making the distinction between disagreeing with a political opponent and attacking his motives or character (as in describing Mr. Obama as a "liar" ).
* Good moment: Mr. Obama, during last week's debate, gave credit to Mr. McCain for opposing certain members of the Bush administration who permitted torture.
* Bad moment: Mr. Obama has approved campaign ads that claim that Mr. McCain's election would represent no more than "four more years of President Bush." This may be true on some issues, such as tax cuts for the wealthy, but the ad doesn't mention that Mr. McCain courageously led bipartisan efforts to reform campaign finance and immigration, opposing the right-wing base of his party.
* Best moment for Mr. McCain: At a campaign event last week, the senator from Arizona took away the microphone from an ignorant and bigoted elderly woman after she said she couldn't trust Mr. Obama because he is an "Arab." Mr. McCain immediately said, "No. That's not true," adding that while he and Mr. Obama disagree on many issues, the senator from Illinois is a decent person and should not be feared if he is elected president. This is the John McCain that so many Democrats and independents came to respect during and after his 2000 presidential campaign.
* Bad moment: At that same event, the haters in the audience booed Mr. McCain for calling Mr. Obama a decent man and saying he should not be feared. Some Obama supporters are blaming Mr. McCain (and Gov. Sarah Palin) for these extremist haters who are in some of their audiences.
Yet when similar haters on the left taunted Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton during the primary campaign with personal vilification, including one who shouted out, "Iron my shirt," many of the same people now criticizing the Republican ticket for what their extreme supporters are saying argued back then that it would be unfair to blame Mr. Obama for those anti-Clinton attacks. (As a Clinton supporter, I agreed that it was unfair to blame Mr. Obama.) The double standard on the left (and the right) is still alive and well.
* Best moment for the Obama team: Michelle Obama was asked on CNN's "Larry King Live" about the race factor, specifically about polling data that showed a certain percentage of voters are still uneasy about a black person being president and some will actually vote against Mr. Obama because of his race.
Mrs. Obama could have rightfully and sadly talked about the continued existence of racism in America. But to her credit, she did not go there. She denied that race would be a significant factor, pointing to the fact that her husband was the Democratic nominee. (She could have pointed out that Mr. Obama is now ahead in every national public opinion poll by significant margins.) She spoke with dignity and pride that America had come so far that there was a chance that her husband could be president of the United States. It was an awesome, uplifting performance.
So what is the lesson here?
Thanks to Mr. McCain (and Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat), every campaign ad that mentions an opponent now must have the candidate say personally, "I approve this message."
So the lesson is simple: Both men must insist that their campaign organizations (including the TV ads) are consistent with their own personal values and standards of conduct during a campaign. And they both should repudiate any third-party organizations running distorted negative ads on their behalf.
It is clear that Mr. McCain's recent higher "negative ratings" and his drop in the polls are in large part a result of his campaign's decision to go so personally negative against Mr. Obama. It's not working, people.
It may be too late, given the economic crises the nation faces, for Mr. McCain to turn around these poll results. But if he stays focused in the remaining days on reproducing more of the "good moments" - being true to himself and positively offering his solutions to the problems facing America - win or lose, he will help rehabilitate what is now an increasingly tarnished Republican brand and his own prior reputation for campaign integrity and mutual respect.
And this will be good for him - and his country.
* Lanny Davis is a prominent Washington lawyer and a political analyst. From 1996 to 1998, he served as special counsel to President Clinton. From 2005 to 2006, he served on President Bush's five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 12, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-13
Test your knowledge of this week's political news.
1: The federal government announced an investigation of a Florida sheriff for doing what at a rally for the McCain campaign last week.
A. Joking about Barack Obama
B. Wearing his uniform on stage at the rally
C. Saying he would arrest protesters
D. Bringing a gun to the rally
2: The son of a Democratic state legislator from Tennessee was indicted this week and accused of what?
A. Slashing the tires of the Straight Talk Express
B. Voter-registration fraud
C. Hacking Sarah Palin's e-mail account
D. Breaking into a McCain campaign office
3: What was the total cost of the economic bailout passed by Congress?
A. $600 billion
B. $700 billion
C. $750 billion
D. $800 billion
4: Which "Saturday Night Live" cast member is portraying Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr.?
A. Darrell Hammond
B. Bill Hader
C. Will Forte
D. Jason Sudeikis
5: One of these four people said: "I hope my grandchildren end up being rich people so I get a window with a view when they put me in a home." Who was it?
A. Joseph R. Biden Jr., making a joke about having nothing against rich people
B. Sarah Palin, talking about seeing Russia in her old age
C. Al Gore, referring to his losses in the stock market
D. John McCain, advocating reductions in capital-gains taxes
6: What did Cindy McCain say Barack Obama should do?
A. Agree to more presidential debates
B. Agree to limit advertising spending
C. Walk in her shoes
D. Speak more forcefully in favor of the financial bailout
7: What did presidential candidate Ralph Nader offer to give donors to his campaign if they contributed in dollar amounts including a 3?
A. Picture of the Three Stooges with faces of President Bush, John McCain and Barack Obama
B. His mom's recipe for hummus with three lemons
C. Fake $3 bill
D. Three ringtones of his voice
8: Which person plans a 30-minute commercial during prime time on Oct. 29, six days before Election Day?
A. Barack Obama
B. John McCain
C. Hillary Clinton
D. Sarah Palin
9: This former secretary of state testified for the defense in the corruption trial of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska.
A. Madeleine Albright
B. James Baker
C. Warren Christopher
D. Colin Powell
10: President Bush signed an agreement with this nation to let U.S. businesses sell nuclear fuel, technology and reactors there.
A. India
B. Mexico
C. Israel
D. Iran
1: B. The federal Office of Special Counsel said it was exploring whether uniform-wearing Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott violated a law preventing officials from using government resources to campaign.
2: C. David Kernell of Knoxville is accused of hacking into Palin's personal Yahoo account and posting screen shots that she was using the account for state business on the Internet.
3: B. The $700 billion rescue package was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush. The administration is still hammering out the details of the plan.
4: D. Sudeikis portrayed Biden against Tina Fey's Sarah Palin in a skit based on the vice presidential debate.
5: A. Biden used the joke to explain that he has nothing against rich people.
6: C. She challenged Obama to "change shoes with me for just one day" to understand what it's like to have a loved one serving in harm's way. The McCains' son Jimmy is a Marine who has served in Iraq.
7: B. Nader offered the recipe as a fundraising incentive, saying his mother, Rose, had made "perhaps the best hummus I've ever had."
8: A. The Obama campaign has secured the time from CBS and is negotiating with other networks to air the half-hour spot.
9: D. Powell is listed in court as among those to testify as a character witness for the seven-term senator.
10: A. The pact with India requires plant safeguards and U.N. inspections at India's civilian nuclear plants.
LOAD-DATE: October 15, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 12, 2008 Sunday
BEACON FR Edition
your letters your letters
Back in the Ozarks, mind is still at beach
I have been back home in the Ozarks of Missouri for a week now, but I am still sharing pictures of my visit to this year's Neptune Festival with my friends and family.
Born and raised in Norfolk, I was happy to return home to "my" beach and to enjoy the art and music, the professional sand castles and the water with my friends and family .
The Neptune Festival did not disappoint! And even Mother Nature got in on the act by permitting weather that cleared and offered a gentle breeze mixed in with the mostly overcast skies.
What can I say? The city of Virginia Beach was on top of this one - trash was cleared promptly and the whole area looked great. The Neptune Festival staff and volunteers were present and watched over the happenings with great skill and pride. I was so impressed by the whole weekend and the magnitude of work it took to pull it off. They made it seem effortless.
I look forward to many more festivals to come!
Ann Leach
Joplin, Mo.
Someone stole my Obama sign
Someone stole my Obama sign. No, it wasn't kids because I live on a street where you can't walk or stop your car unless you want to chance being in the ditch which lines our street. So someone had to pull in my driveway to rip out the sign which was 20 feet off the road. Are people in Virginia Beach so afraid of the results of the election to do that?
God bless America.
Dolores Swett
Princess Anne
Someone stole my McCain sign
A message to the person who took my McCain sign from my yard!
Dear Sir or Madam:
How dare you trample on my rights as an American citizen to support the candidate of my choice? I am proud to support Mr. McCain in his bid for the presidency of the United States.
I would not even think of coming on your property and removing a sign that demonstrates whom you support. And I am sure your candidate of choice would not approve of this behavior from you. You not only disrespect me but you disrespect the candidate you support and the country you live in.
I have put up a new sign for McCain in my yard and will continue to replace the signs even if you continue to steal them. I will continue to voice my opinion on whom I think would be the best choice for president. You cannot silence me or others like me. That is our right by being a citizen of the United States of America.
Fortune L. Krisak
Christopher Farms
Sessoms could have saved money on ad
It was so good to see the article on page 16 of Thursday's (Sept. 25) Beacon. It concerned the report by Barry Frankenfield about the $52 million already set up in the budget over the next 20 years to acquire space for parks, bike trails and open spaces.
I wish that Will Sessoms had saved his money on the ad on page 7 of the same edition where he proclaimed that "council is saying we don't have the funds to continue buying open spaces." I think that Mr. Sessoms doesn't know what is going on.
Vote for Meyera.
Frank Wynne
Chimney Hill
Pols should be tried for betraying the public
We must have a constitutional amendment removing the ex post facto provision regarding office holders and bureaucrats.
It should permit ex post facto prosecutions of office holders who violate the public trust, as in the monetary system meltdown.
Unfortunately, such an amendment would have to be grandfathered so social engineer William Jefferson Clinton, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), House Financial Services Committee chairman , would be immune from prosecution.
In this 50th year since receiving my MBA from the men who were founders of ethical accounting practices, the lawyers have found ways to subvert everything.
Henry T. (Tom) Cook, Lt. Col., USMC (Ret.)
Kempsville
Parks and Rec efforts therapeutic for son
A great big thank you to the Therapeutics Division of Virginia Beach Parks & Recreation.
Our son, Michael, has been enjoying your programs for several years. You are always thinking up new activities and classes for both youth and adults in our community with special needs. All the staff enjoy what they do and really like and know the participants.
We are always disappointed when a class has to be canceled because Michael is the only one signed up. Again, thank you for all you do - we are so grateful.
Sheila M. Martin
Lynnhaven
HOW to write us
We welcome your letters on a variety of topics, especially those related to Virginia Beach. They must include the author's name, address and telephone numbers.
Mail your letters to: Editorial Page The Beacon 4565 Virginia Beach Blvd. Virginia Beach, VA 23462
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Limit: one letter per writer every 30 days. Submissions may be edited or condensed; shorter letters get preference. Letters can also be posted, read and responded to online at our blog: www.bletters.com.
LOAD-DATE: October 12, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
October 12, 2008 Sunday
Regional Edition
Those Negative Ads Are a Positive Thing
SECTION: OUTLOOK; Pg. B01
It's that time again. With the mud flying in the presidential race, pundits, journalists and political observers of all stripes are denouncing the campaign's new, strikingly negative tone. Listening to them, you'd think that the very fabric of our democracy were being ripped apart every time a candidate aired a tough attack ad, threw an elbow or issued a sharply worded statement. It's no surprise that the public has joined the chorus to denounce negativity in politics. But as someone who has spent years studying negative advertising, I say hold the handwringing over attack ads. They're actually pretty good for the country.
Before you throw down the paper in disgust at my heresy, let me offer, as Sen. John McCain likes to say, some "straight talk." For starters, let's not be prudish about this. Really, what did we expect to happen? The polls all show that Sen. Barack Obama has opened up a significant lead over McCain, who is saddled with a sagging economy and a wildly unpopular president. Senior GOP operatives recently told The Washington Post that the McCain campaign would take a newly aggressive tone to try "to change the subject here," as one McCain hand put it. So is it any wonder that McCain is airing mostly negative ads at this point?
And Obama's not innocent, either. While McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, blasted the Democratic nominee for his rather thin ties to a seemingly unrepentant member of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground, Obama responded with an ad reminding voters of McCain's role in the "Keating Five" savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s. Recent data from Nielsen suggest that the campaigns have aired roughly the same number of negative ads. Even Karl Rove, who knows a thing or two about attack ads, has declared that both sides have gone too negative.
Most people assume that negativity in politics is a bad thing. But they're wrong. Attack ads aren't just inevitable; they're actually helpful to voters. Negative ads, on average, are actually more informative than positive ones. This claim sounds like sacrilege in light of all the negativity about negativity, but the data are clear. Believe it or not, I've examined all the ads aired by presidential candidates on television from 1960 to 2004, and my analysis has led me to some startling conclusions:
First, negative ads are more likely than positive ads to be about the issues.
Second, negative ads are more likely to be specific when talking about those issues.
Third, negative ads are more likely to contain facts.
And finally, negative ads are more likely to be about the important issues of the day.
How is this possible? How can something so widely reviled actually turn out to be good for us? It's like finding out that Big Macs are nutritious.
The problem is that we rarely consider what's necessary for a negative ad to work. Obama can't just say that a McCain presidency would be bad for the economy. Instead, he must make an argument, even a 30-second one, showing how McCain's policies will supposedly lead to an economic downturn. That forces Obama to be much more specific than he is when he's out on the stump touting his own vague desire to grow the economy.
Moreover, attacks need evidence to work. Could Obama attack McCain as unprepared to serve as commander-in-chief? Not in this lifetime. McCain has the necessary experience, and claiming otherwise would backfire. Similarly, McCain can't question Obama's intelligence because the Democrat is clearly smart. When ads lack the evidence to support their claims, they tend to work against the candidate who aired them. Just consider the flak McCain took recently after running his "sex education" ad. It simply wasn't credible to claim that Obama supported sex education for 6-year-old kids.
Part of the reason people don't like negative ads is that attacks aren't fun; learning about someone's weaknesses isn't enjoyable. Nonetheless, it's important. In 1988, for example, then-vice president George H.W. Bush's campaign was criticized for airing the famous "tank ad," which used footage of a helmet-wearing Michael S. Dukakis driving around in a tank while the narrator listed defense programs that the Massachusetts governor opposed. Sure, the video made Dukakis look like Snoopy, but the ad also raised important themes for voters. With the Cold War raging, the public needed to know about the candidates' views on defense policy. If you listened only to Dukakis's own ads, you would have thought that he was a bigger supporter of defense than Bush. But the record suggested otherwise.
That ad was an important corrective to the overly generous account candidates usually offer about their own records. In 2004, Sen. John F. Kerry described himself as someone who supported tax cuts. The Bush campaign had to point out the many times Kerry had supported tax increases. Is that hitting below the belt? Hardly. The public needed to know Kerry's full record on taxes. Kerry never would have provided it -- but the negative ads did.
The bottom line: Candidates are great at telling us all about their strengths, but they just won't tell us about their weaknesses. So that task falls to their opponents. We need this negative information to make an informed choice.
I'll push my own Straight Talk Express even further: Any democracy demands negativity. Our nation rests on the idea that ordinary citizens can replace one set of leaders with another. But to make that change, we need those out of power to explain what's wrong with those in charge. The beauty of our system is the peaceful transfer of power, and that absolutely requires negativity.
Some may say that purely negative campaigns undermine this country and produce nothing of value. Perhaps. But if you want to see some truly "negative" campaigns, forget 2008 or 1988 and go back to the founding of the republic. First, consider the Declaration of Independence -- one of our most hallowed documents. It is also strikingly negative, attacking King George's actions toward the colonies. Or consider the debate over the adoption of the Constitution. Its foes waged a harsh, nasty and sometimes personal campaign against the Federalists and our new founding charter. By one estimate, 90 percent of all the anti-federalists' statements were attacks on the Constitution. The result of all this negativity? The Bill of Rights -- not a bad outcome at all.
Not every attack this season has been a good thing, of course. The number of attack ads seems excessive to me, too. We're usually told that all these negative commercials are aired because they work. But that doesn't hold water. Despite that conventional wisdom, there's no systematic evidence that attacks ads work better than positive ones. We can all point to famous negative ads that seemed to swing an election, but the same can be said of positive ads. Remember Ronald Reagan's beautiful "Morning in America" ads, which laid out the many successes of Reagan's first term? Walter Mondale sure does.
The reason we have so many negative ads in 2008 has less to do with their efficacy or virtue than with the way the media cover campaigns. Today's coverage gives candidates far more incentive to run negative ads than they had 20 or 30 years ago. Consultants know that reporters and bloggers love harsh, negative ads. Journalists relish the battle and revel in the attacks. When was the last time you saw a news story about a positive ad? I recently asked a panel of journalists this question, and only Joe Klein of Time magazine could say that he had recently written about one of Obama's more uplifting ads. The sugary stuff may work with voters, but it doesn't set journalists' and pundits' pulses racing.
Hence this cycle has seen an increase in nasty ads online and lots of negative spots airing in just a few media markets. The campaigns are, in effect, fishing: dropping a lot of lines in the water in hopes of hooking the media. Take all the attention the McCain team's "Celebrity" ad received earlier this year by linking Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. This ad was clever, and it offered a theme that the media found interesting and relevant: Is Obama ready to lead?
But the best, and most troubling, illustration comes from the 2004 presidential race. We all know the term "Swift Boat," but not because many of us saw the actual ad that ripped Kerry's Vietnam service. The ad didn't get much air time, but the media lavished attention on the controversial spot. I did a systematic search of media coverage from August to November 2004 and found that the term "Swift Boat" got nearly twice as many mentions in major U.S. newspapers as the term "Iraq war."
All this straight talk may be received with, well, some negativity. As a defender of negativity, I can only say: Bring it on. We need to continually evaluate, judge and criticize our ideas, and that means we need negativity. It plays an important role in letting the country decide who's ready to lead. It may not be pretty, but democratic politics rarely are. U.S. elections are pitched battles for control of the federal government. The stakes are huge, and tempers flare. But the candidate left standing will be battle-tested for the fiery trial that awaits him when he takes that oath of office.
John G. Geer is a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and the author of "In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns."
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; By Tracy Baker -- United Press International; Damned spot: Michael S. Dukakis's Sept. 1988 ride in a tank provided an image that his Republican foes pounced on.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 12, 2008 Sunday
Suburban Edition
Candidate Banners Can Leave Clients, Businesses Bruised
BYLINE: Avis Thomas-Lester; Washington Post Staff Writer
The sign went up Sunday evening, bold black letters against the stark white background of the marquee at the Colony South Hotel & Conference Center in Clinton: "Country First. McCain/Palin."
By daybreak, pandemonium had broken loose all across heavily Democratic Prince George's County. Many local supporters of Democrat Barack Obama, jolted by the message as they headed down Branch Avenue on their Monday morning commutes, grabbed cellphones and BlackBerrys to notify friends. Operators of neighborhood e-mail group lists cried foul to their memberships. The NAACP logged calls. Community leaders demanded boycotts of the hotel, a common venue for Democratic events.
"Businesspeople have to be mindful of the sentiments and sensibilities of their market trading area, and Prince George's County is overwhelmingly for Obama," said community activist Arthur Turner of Kettering, who was among those advocating a boycott. "People I have talked to look at the sign as a slap in the face. They feel it was blatant disrespect. . . . I have heard people say they will no longer patronize Colony South because of that disrespect."
The outcry over the hotel marquee tapped into the passion -- and sometimes anger -- that has characterized this fall's presidential campaign. Supporters of Republican candidate John McCain have vented their rage at rallies this week, applauding thunderously as McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists."
Prince George's, though, is clearly Obama Country. As the nation's wealthiest mostly black community, where about 77 percent of registered voters are Democrats, residents have Obama placards in their yards, bumper stickers on their cars and the candidate's visage on their T-shirts.
The marquee supporting the GOP ticket in "an area that is strongly African American was like putting a stink bomb in the middle of the living room," said University of Maryland political Professor Ron Walters. "What it does show is the emotions that are around this campaign and this election."
Colony South General Manager Alan Vahabzadeh said that the hotel, one of several Washington area businesses that has dared to venture into the political thicket, got the message after about 100 phone calls and three dozen e-mails. The sign came down Wednesday afternoon.
"I didn't even realize it was going to be like this," he said in an interview. The last thing "we want to do is lose business," he added.
But Friday afternoon, motorists noticed new signs -- broad banners attached to wooden stakes in the hotel's front yard -- again touting the Republicans.
Vahabzadeh did not return later calls seeking comment, but an employee said the phones were again ringing with complaints.
And Democratic activists started talking boycott. That could mean canceling political events at the hotel and urging residents to skip its Wednesday night karaoke events and Sunday brunches.
"While a business has the right to display what it chooses, the public has a right to show its contempt for that decision, including boycotting," said Mel Franklin, president of the Greater Marlboro Democratic Club.
Other business owners who have gotten into the political game have drawn less grief. At the Big Bad Woof pet store in liberal Takoma Park, bumper stickers urging people to "Vote for Bark Obama 2008" are available for sale. No such items were available for "John McCanine."
At B. Smith's restaurant in Union Station recently, a waiter sported an Obama campaign button. At the Old Town Trading Post in Alexandria, which sells hemp necklaces, African figurines and incense, among other novelties, an array of McCain T-shirts and a bumper sticker that reads "Friends don't let friends vote Democrat" are available for sale. A giant sign at Parson's Farm nursery in Prince William County proclaims the area "McCain Country."
Richard D'Amico, a stylist at Axis, a hair salon on Connecticut Avenue NW, has declared his work area a "Sarah Palin-Free Zone" by posting on his mirror a photo he cut out of a magazine marked with a red circle and a slash across it. The salon has Obama bags in the window. None of the clients has protested or demanded equal time for McCain, he said.
"It was such a topic of conversation -- everybody wants to talk about Sarah Palin. Even my clients stop me on the street and say, 'How about that Sarah Palin?' " said D'Amico, an Obama supporter. "So I decided I had to put a sign up."
The political partisanship, residents said, is their right as Americans.
Some Prince George's Democrats acknowledge as much.
"This is a highly charged election where the stakes are extremely high and emotions are running high on all fronts," said Orlan Johnson, a lawyer who lives in Bowie and is on Obama's national finance team. "But it is difficult for me to believe that individuals shouldn't continue to have the opportunity to exercise their right to free speech. It would be un-American to not allow that to happen."
Others say residents have a right to register their dissent.
"For a business to display a huge McCain-Palin sign in the middle of such a pro-Democratic and pro-Obama area is business suicide," Franklin said.
At Colony South, Vahabzadeh said the "Country First" message had been posted on the marquee Sunday evening by security guards after they received a memo instructing them to put it up.
Vahabzadeh said he did not know who wrote the memo and has been unable to find it. He has not spoken to the security guards, who work the midnight shift, he said.
The hotel's owner, Francis P. Chiaramonte, could not be reached at the hotel or at his home. His son, Michael Chiaramonte, chairman of the board of the Prince George's County Business Roundtable, did not return a call to his office or to the roundtable office yesterday.
"We support everyone here," Vahabzadeh said of the facility, whose front lawn is frequently adorned with signs for Democratic candidates and has been the venue for the annual prayer breakfast for former state delegate Obie Patterson (D-Prince George's), a recent home foreclosure program called by Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and a meeting of the African American Democratic Club.
Two weeks ago, a fundraiser for Obama was held there. "If I was so Republican, why would I book an Obama fundraiser?" Vahabzadeh asked.
Bob Ross, 63, a community activist who lives near the hotel, said Obama supporters should see the sign as a reminder that they should "stay vigilant."
"That sign should serve as a reminder that everybody who supports Obama should make sure to bring five or six people with them to the polls Nov. 4. It means that there is still more work to be done."
June White Dillard, president of the Prince George's chapter of the NAACP, said the type of events Colony South has booked in the past is the reason the sign cut so deeply.
Mary Brantley, a travel agency owner from Upper Marlboro, belongs to the health club at Colony South and was among those who complained to the hotel. She was heartened to see the marquee changed Wednesday. It now advertises football games.
But as she drove past the hotel Friday afternoon, she couldn't help notice the two large banners in the front yard proclaiming: "McCain Palin. Country First." Again.
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Jenna Johnson -- The Washington Post; Signs for the Republican team of John McCain and Sarah Palin near the marquee at Colony South Hotel & Conference Center in Clinton -- right in Barack Obama territory -- have spurred calls for boycotts of the facility.
IMAGE; By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post; "Everybody wants to talk about Sarah Palin," said Richard D'Amico of Axis hair salon in Northwest Washington. So the Obama supporter put a sign up discouraging that. The salon also has Obama bags in its front window.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
BYLINE: By Jennifer Harper, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: POLITICS; INSIDE POLITICS: WEEKEND; M09
Lub-dub, lub-dub
Much has been made of the "just-a-heartbeat-away" theory of politics, which is heavy with theoretical questions about what would happen should a leader succumb to illness or misfortune in office. There has been plenty of partisan exploitation in the press, studded with worst-case scenarios. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney certainly were subjected to it.
Now it is Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's turn - with most of the stories positing something like this: "Is she ready to be the leader of the Free World if John McCain dies and blah-blah-blah-blah?" The lament appears almost as frequently as that now familiar, "Yes, but can Sarah Palin be president and still be a mother and moose hunter at the same time?"
But here's news. American voters are not so concerned about the health and age of the candidates, no matter how much journalists and pundits ramp up the story.
A CNN/ Opinion Research Corp. survey of 1,020 adults conducted Sept. 19 to 21 revealed that campaign health did not weigh so heavily on their minds: 7 percent said it was the "most important" factor while 24 percent said that health issues were one of several factors they considered. Another 28 percent said health was a minor concern while 41 percent said it was "not a factor at all."
And continuing, 79 percent said Mr. McCain's age would not affect their vote - identical findings to a similar poll taken on Ronald Reagan in 1980. Fifty-three percent were not concerned that Mr. McCain would sicken in office, while 81 percent said they were not concerned about Sen. Barack Obama's health.
Some things do bother us, though. Eighty-nine percent would be concerned if a candidate was an alcoholic, 73 percent would fret if a candidate had a heart attack during the campaign, 68 percent would care if the hopeful was currently diagnosed with cancer and 67 percent would worry if a candidate were under the care of a therapist or took antidepressants. Just over a quarter cared if a candidate smoked.
Mental and fiscal
What's this? A reasoned effort to address a nightmare economy in a civilized manner? Huzzah. On Tuesday, the nonpartisan Concord Coalition hosts the "Fiscal Wake-up Tour," a public town-hall meeting featuring economists from both the Heritage Foundation and the Brookings Institution who will speak "in plain terms."
Oh joy.
"One thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on is that our nation's current fiscal policy is not sustainable over the long term," said spokesman Robert Bixby. "Changing course will require hard choices such as scaling back future entitlement promises, increasing revenues to pay for them, or - most likely - a combination of both. Because these choices are politically difficult, the active involvement of the American people is critical."
The ongoing "tour" already has been to 40 cities; this time the confab is in Philadelphia. Accumulated wisdom seems particularly critical at this juncture as the players "cut through the usual partisan rhetoric and stimulate a more realistic public dialogue," Mr. Bixby added.
Alice M. Rivlin of Brookings and Stuart M. Butler from Heritage will both weigh in; follow along with such dollar-conscious doings at www.concordcoalition.org.
Days of yore
Columbus sailed the ocean blue and eventually discovered America on this day in 1492, which also marks the beginnings of a traditional morning ritual. To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the landing, young Americans began reciting the Pledge of Allegiance for the first time in public schools on Oct. 12, 1892.
Today also marks a singular moment in footwear. Vexed with the Cold War, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev pounded a shoe on the dais during a dispute at a U.N. General Assembly on this day in 1960.
And score one for Old Glory: The U.S. House of Representatives approved a statutory federal ban on the destruction of the American flag on this day in 1989.
And we have two other anniversaries never to forget. Today also marks the eighth anniversary of the attack on the USS Cole in Aden Harbor, Yemen, which killed 17 crew members and injured 39. Visit the ship here: www.cole. navy.mil. Today also marks the sixth anniversary of terrorist bombings in Bali, which left 202 dead, 200 injured.
Quotes of note
"She's a really tough Western woman." - Laura Bush, on Gov. Sarah Palin, to CNN.
"No pit bull, no dog, nor any other animal for that matter is as dangerous as you are." - actress Brigitte Bardot, in a letter addressed to Mrs. Palin.
"Obama bores his way to victory." - headline in The Daily Beast, a new blog from former New Yorker maven Tina Brown.
"Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Lenin and Stalin." - from the top 12 list of "Russia's All-Time Greatest Citizens," a survey conducted by Rossia, state-owned TV; from the Moscow Times.
By the numbers
We're all sweating the economy and the election. Junior's college tuition looms. The price of dog food is escalating. But some things, somehow, persevere. Here are America's top five most expensive ZIP codes, according to Forbes Magazine - plus a few entries further down the list:
33109 (Miami Beach, median home price $3.8 million)
07620 (Alpine, N.J., median home price $3.6 million)
11765 (Mill Neck, N.Y., median home price $3 million)
92657 (Newport Coast, Calif., median home price $2.8 million)
11976 (Water Mill, N.Y., median home price $2.7 million)
And in 15th place: 21056 (Gibson Island, Md., median home price $2 million).
At 17: 10007 (New York City, median home price $1.9 million)
At 121: 22066 (Great Falls, Va., median home price $1 million)
At 198: 20854 (Potomac, Md., median home price $890,000)
Last at 500: 33037 (Key Largo, Fla., median home price $676,500)
Contact Jennifer Harper at 202/636-3085 or jharper@washingtontimes.com
LOAD-DATE: October 12, 2008
GRAPHIC: USS Cole [NO CREDIT]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 11, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
The company Obama keeps The company Obama keeps
BYLINE: CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
CONVICTED FELON Tony Rezko. Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It's hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. Yet let the McCain campaign raise the issue, and the mainstream media begin fulminating about dirty campaigning tinged with racism and McCarthyite guilt by association.
But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque and self-contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it in any way illegitimate.
Sen. John McCain has only himself to blame for the bad timing. He should months ago have begun challenging Obama's associations, before the economic meltdown allowed the Obama campaign (and the mainstream media, which is to say the same thing) to dismiss the charges as an act of desperation by the trailing candidate.
McCain had his chance back in April when the North Carolina Republican Party ran a gubernatorial campaign ad that included the linking of Obama with Jeremiah Wright. The ad was duly denounced by The New York Times and other deep thinkers as racist.
This was patently absurd. Racism is treating people differently and invidiously on the basis of race. Had any white presidential candidate had a close 20-year association with a white preacher overtly spreading race hatred from the pulpit, that candidate would have been not just universally denounced and deemed unfit for office but written out of polite society entirely.
Nonetheless, McCain in his infinite wisdom, and with his overflowing sense of personal rectitude, joined the braying mob in denouncing that perfectly legitimate ad, saying it had no place in any campaign. In doing so, McCain unilaterally disarmed himself, rendering off-limits Obama's associations, an issue that even Hillary Clinton addressed more than once.
Obama's political career was launched with Ayers giving him a fundraiser in his living room. And Ayers shows no remorse. His only regret is that he "didn't do enough."
Why are these associations important? Do I think Obama is as corrupt as Rezko? Or shares Wright's angry racism or Ayers' unreconstructed 1960s radicalism?
No. But that does not make these associations irrelevant. They tell us two important things about Obama.
First, his cynicism and ruthlessness. He found these men useful, and use them he did. Would you attend a church whose pastor was spreading racial animosity from the pulpit? Would you even shake hands with -- let alone serve on two boards with -- an unrepentant terrorist, whether he bombed U.S. military installations or abortion clinics?
Most Americans would not, on the grounds of sheer indecency. Yet Obama did, if not out of conviction then out of expediency. He was a young man on the make, an unknown outsider working his way into Chicago politics.
Obama is not the first politician to rise through a corrupt political machine. But he is one of the rare few to then have the audacity to present himself as a transcendent healer, hovering above and bringing redemption to the "old politics" -- of the kind he had enthusiastically embraced in Chicago .
Second, and even more disturbing than the cynicism, is the window these associations give on Obama's core beliefs. He doesn't share Rev. Wright's poisonous views of race nor Ayers' views, past and present, about the evil that is American society. But Obama clearly did not consider these views beyond the pale. For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond.
Until now. Today, on the threshold of the presidency, Obama concedes the odiousness of these associations, which is why he has severed them. But for the years in which he sat in Wright's pews and shared common purpose on boards with Ayers, Obama considered them a legitimate, indeed unremarkable, part of social discourse.
Obama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect. There is a difference between temperament and character. Equanimity is a virtue. Tolerance of the obscene is not.
Charles Krauthammer's column is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group. E-mail him at letters@charleskrauthammer.com
LOAD-DATE: October 11, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
October 11, 2008 Saturday
Regional Edition
Will McCain Do Anything to Win?
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A21
Although our nation's economic house is on fire, John McCain isn't unveiling proposals to put out the fiscal flames. Instead, he is pursuing the presidency by taking the low road, as he and his surrogates attack Barack Obama in harsh, personal terms. It's hard to believe this is the same man who in 2004 said of the Swift-boat attacks against John Kerry: "I deplore this kind of politics. I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable."
In fact, after McCain lost the Republican nomination to George Bush in 2000, he declared that there was a "special place in hell" for the Bush operatives who had run a smear campaign against him. By adopting the same approach against Obama, McCain diminishes his reputation and raises questions about his commitment to fairness and decency.
I know that John McCain is a man of courage and character. His ability to overcome the torture he endured at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors is a tribute to his strength and to the human spirit. But as Americans yearn for a president to lead us courageously into an uncertain future, McCain appears to be abandoning his creed of putting country first.
While I am disappointed in McCain's about-face, I am not surprised. When I ran for the Senate in 2006, my opponent, Bob Corker, also found himself trailing in the October polls. His campaign and the Republican National Committee launched a series of false and vicious character attack ads, including the infamous "call me" ad, in which a scantily clad white woman looked at the camera and said, "Harold, call me."
Every major news organization and independent ad-checking group ruled the ad a smear and deemed it way over the line. But that didn't stop John McCain from coming to Tennessee and campaigning for my opponent while the "call me" ad and other smears were broadcast across the state. Not once did McCain speak out against that ad as he did about the smear against John Kerry. In fact, the first manager he hired for his 2008 presidential campaign was Terry Nelson, the person who produced the "call me" ad. Nelson has such a history of practicing below-the-belt politics that Lee Iacocca, a strong supporter of McCain, wrote in his book "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?": "What does it say about John McCain that he's willing to make that kind of person the head of his team?"
This election may be the most consequential since Franklin Roosevelt won the presidency in 1932. Our country is at war in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The American dream is falling further out of reach of millions of families. We face intense competition from rising economic powers in Asia. And after eight years of the failed leadership of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, our image and standing around the globe are in disrepair. Our budget is burdened with runaway entitlement costs, and our public education system is failing our children.
John McCain has to make a choice over the next 3 1/2 weeks. Will he succumb to base impulses and take the country down a path littered with smears and personal attacks? Or will he focus on the future with straight talk and big ideas? America deserves solutions for its problems. Where are McCain's plans to replace the 750,000 jobs lost since the beginning of the year, to stop our financial meltdown, and to help the families hammered by the prices of gas, food and health care?
The writer is chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. He represented Tennessee's 9th District in the U.S. House from 1997 to 2007.
LOAD-DATE: October 11, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Dean Rohrer
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 11, 2008 Saturday
Regional Edition
McCain Mum on Former Pastor;
Some in GOP Frustrated at Omission in Attacks on Obama
BYLINE: Steven A. Holmes and Michael D. Shear; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A08
As John McCain's campaign hits hard at some of Barack Obama's past associations, one person closely tied to the Democratic candidate is conspicuously absent from the attacks: the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. It is an omission that some Republican strategists and McCain supporters find puzzling and frustrating.
In advertisements, in Web videos and on the campaign trail, McCain repeatedly heaps scorn on Obama for his ties to convicted Chicago financier Antoin "Tony" Rezko and to William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground, the violent 1970s radical group. The Republican nominee never mentions Wright, the controversial black minister once described by Obama as his spiritual adviser and whom some strategists see as better target than Rezko or Ayers.
McCain made it clear this spring, after Wright's inflammatory sermons became a problem for Obama, that he was opposed to making the pastor a campaign issue. When the North Carolina Republican Party aired an ad using clips of Wright's sermons to cast Obama as an extremist, McCain condemned the commercial at a town hall meeting.
"All I can do is publicly state that that is not in keeping with the tradition of the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan," McCain said. "And I will bring every pressure to bear that I can to stop it."
And in a letter to the state party chair, McCain said the ad "degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats."
McCain's reluctance to bring up Wright was on display this week at a rally in Waukesha, Wis. There, a black radio talk show host beseeched the candidate to make an issue of the "shady characters" once affiliated with Obama, mentioning Wright by name.
"I am begging you, sir, I am begging you," said James T. Harris, who hosts a radio show in Milwaukee.
McCain changed the subject to the economy.
"When your spiritual adviser is behaving like a race-baiting hatemonger, that's something voters should know about," said Alex Vogel, a Republican strategist who is not affiliated with the McCain campaign.
Another Republican strategist, who did not want to be identified criticizing the campaign, was more pointed. "It's just silly," he said. "If you're going to play the association game, play the association game.
"There is a much tighter connection, both in terms of their relationship and in terms of the politics of it, between Obama and Reverend Wright than between Obama and William Ayers," the strategist said. "Most people these days think the Weather Underground was a band."
Even McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, has suggested that the campaign ought to make more of Obama's links to Wright. In an interview this week, she told columnist William Kristol, "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more." But, she added, "I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up."
The split within the Republican camp illustrates the racial landmines that are strewn about the presidential contest. Abigail Thernstrom, a conservative who writes about racial issues, believes the McCain campaign is afraid to bring up Wright for fear of being labeled racist.
"They're just terrified," Thernstrom said. "People play the race card in two seconds, and it's the nastiest card you can play."
The McCain campaign's reluctance has surprised even some of Obama's black supporters. "I keep waiting for it," said Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP. "When is this happening? When is this coming? Maybe they're saving it."
Wright, a former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago who officiated at Obama's wedding and baptized his two daughters, said in a sermon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that "America's chickens are coming home to roost" for the country's own acts of "terrorism." In another sermon, he said blacks should sing "God damn America" instead of "God Bless America" to protest centuries of mistreatment.
The controversy forced Obama to give a major address on race relations that drew praise from some commentators, including Thernstrom, but was criticized by others for not going far enough in condemning Wright. After the pastor repeated some of his more contentious views in subsequent appearances, Obama cut off contact with him, and he has dropped out of sight.
Donna Hammond-Miller, media coordinator for Trinity, said that Wright, who has retired as the church's pastor, is "not accepting any interview requests from the media and would have no comment."
After his initial insistence that Wright should not be an issue, McCain relented a bit, saying: "I can understand why the American people are upset about [Wright's comments]. I can understand that Americans viewing these kinds of comments are angry and upset."
But having taken Wright off the table at one point, the McCain campaign would be presented with another problem if it now goes after him. "Race is not the reason," said the Republican strategist. "They don't care. It's the charge of hypocrisy which is the deadliest of all political sins."
Inside his campaign, McCain's initial public promises not to make Wright an issue have held sway. Top aides have consistently said they will not use the pastor as a bludgeon against Obama, even if doing so might be politically advantageous.
And McCain backers say a Wright ad could produce a backlash, giving Obama and Democrats an opening to accuse the Republican of racism.
The big question -- even inside the McCain camp -- is whether a third-party group might choose to ignore the candidate's public position and run an ad featuring Wright.
That would immediately put pressure on McCain to condemn the ad, using his words from April. But doing so could anger some of his base's most fervent voters, who are eager to see their candidate aggressively go after all of Obama's past associations.
At least one neutral observer believes that beyond giving McCain's increasingly angry base something to feel good about, there is little that would be accomplished by making Wright an issue.
"McCain's problem is that he's got advisers telling him that 'the only way we're going to win is to drive up Obama's negatives,' " said David Bositis, a senior fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank specializing in racial issues. "That's not going to work. People are not listening to that. What people want to hear about is the economy. They don't want to hear about, nor do they care about, Ayers or Wright."
LOAD-DATE: October 11, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Chip Somodevilla -- Getty Images; The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom Barack Obama called his spiritual adviser, came under scrutiny for his fiery sermons.
IMAGE; By Chris Walker -- Chicago Tribune Via Associated Press; John McCain has criticized his rival's ties to former radical William Ayers.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
October 11, 2008 Saturday
Regional Edition
McCain Moves to Soften the Tone at Rallies, if Not in Ads
BYLINE: Michael D. Shear; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
DATELINE: LAKEVILLE, Minn., Oct. 10
At the end of perhaps the most charged and negative week of the presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain sought to tone down his rhetoric toward Sen. Barack Obama even as his running mate, allies and his own advertising continued to attack the character of the Democratic nominee.
On Friday, McCain urged a crowd of skeptical supporters at a town hall forum in this Minneapolis suburb to be respectful of his rival for the presidency despite their deep policy differences with Obama.
The Republican nominee drew a cascade of boos from the crowd when he called Obama "a decent person" and told an expectant father that he does not have to be scared if he is president of the United States.
"We want to fight and I want to fight, but we will be respectful," McCain said, again prompting loud boos when he declared that he admires Obama's accomplishments. "I want everyone to be respectful, and let's be sure we are. . . . That doesn't mean you have to reduce your ferocity. It's just got to be respectful."
At one point in the event, McCain grabbed back the microphone from an elderly woman who had begun to say that she didn't like Obama because he is an Arab. "No, ma'am. No, ma'am," McCain said. "He's a decent family man, a citizen who I just happen to have serious differences with on fundamental questions."
His comments came a day after an angry crowd at a Wisconsin rally shouted epithets about the Democratic nominee, pumped their fists angrily in the air and catcalled repeatedly when Obama's name was mentioned. Several called him a "socialist," and many flipped their middle finger as a press bus drove by.
McCain appeared determined to respond Friday, saying that he respects Obama and only quieting the boos by saying that "if I didn't think I would be one heck of a better president, I wouldn't be running."
But throughout the day, McCain's allies and advertising unleashed a flurry of attacks on his rival's ethics, touting Obama's ties to a Vietnam War-era radical and accusing him of being connected to a group accused of engaging in voter fraud.
He launched a tough new television ad linking Obama to William Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground, which bombed U.S. facilities in protest of the Vietnam War. The narrator in the ad says Obama "lied" about his relationship with Ayers and accuses the Democrat of "blind ambition, bad judgment."
Later, the McCain campaign hosted a conference call with John M. Murtagh, a target of a bombing linked to Ayers's group, in which Murtagh accused Obama of lying "about the nature and extent of that relationship."
At the town hall, McCain promised not to relent on tying Obama to Ayers, telling the crowd, "We'll be talking about that more."
Campaigning in Ohio, Obama accused McCain of "riling up a crowd by stoking anger and division" and said the negative campaigning will backfire. "They can run misleading ads. They can pursue the politics of anything goes. It will not work. Not this time," Obama said.
The attacks on Obama's character came as the both candidates offered new proposals to address the steep drop in the stock market and the effects of the ongoing fiscal crisis on Wall Street.
Obama proposed a menu of tax cuts and loans for small businesses, a temporary program he said is needed to help "Main Street" and complement what has already been done for major financial institutions. McCain said the federal government should suspend rules that require seniors to begin withdrawing from their retirement accounts when they reach age 70 1/2 to allow them more times to try and recoup recent losses.
But throughout the day, McCain's campaign continued to focus on Obama's character.
The accusation about voter fraud came in a conference call with his campaign manager, Rick Davis, who said he is worried the election is being "stolen" in several battleground states where irregularities have been alleged in voter registrations collected by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
"We don't think the election is something that should be stolen from the American electorate," Davis said, urging Obama to join him in calling for federal investigations and media inquiries into ACORN and its ties to Obama.
"ACORN is an organization that has violated the law on a repeated basis," Davis said. "Barack Obama has given $832,000 within the last year to an organization that is a front group for ACORN."
The McCain campaign put its accusations into a 90-second Web ad, in which an announcer accuses ACORN of "bullying banks, intimidation tactics" and "disruption of business." It says ACORN stands accused of "massive voter fraud" and says "Obama's ties to ACORN run long and deep. . . . They even endorsed him for president."
Obama aides rejected the charge, saying that Obama was never an ACORN community organizer and represented the group only as a lawyer. They said his work as an organizer in 1992 was not connected to the group.
"The McCain campaign's allegations about Senator Obama are completely transparent and false," spokesman Tommy Vietor said. Obama "believes that the registration of voters at record levels is good for our democracy, and the McCain-Palin campaign's false claims are nothing more than another dishonorable, shameful attempt to divert voters' attention from the unprecedented challenges facing their families and our nation."
The voter registration group has come under increased scrutiny since its offices in Nevada were raided Tuesday morning.
Agents with the Nevada secretary of state and attorney general's office raided the group's Clark County headquarters, alleging that ACORN had hired felons to collect signatures and had submitted about 300 apparently fraudulent registration cards.
Officials from ACORN brushed aside the charges of fraud, saying they attempt to verify obviously bogus information on voter registration forms that they collect. But, in many states the law requires them to submit forms to election officials even if they contain suspect information.
"We feel the current strategy from the right is to create and manufacture a so-called crisis of voter fraud," said Brian Kettenring, chief organizer for ACORN in Florida.
Staff writers Robert Barnes and Steven A. Holmes contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 11, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
October 11, 2008 Saturday
Suburban Edition
Obama Buys a Half-Hour Block From Networks; 'SNL's' Fauxbama Draws 11 Million Viewers
Barack Obama's presidential campaign is getting a bargain for the half-hour of prime time it's bought on CBS and NBC, and is in talks about buying on ABC and Fox.
The Democratic presidential candidate's camp is paying less than $1 million to each of the two networks to air its campaign-related program on Wednesday, Oct. 29. That's just six days before the election and the anniversary of Black Tuesday in 1929 -- the notorious day in stock market history that heralded the start of the Great Depression.
Obama's campaign might want to create a "roadblock" with the show, which is to say, to air it in the same time period on all four major broadcast networks.
Fox is said to be amenable to selling the half-hour to Obama's campaign -- these are called "time buys" -- in the event there is no Game 6 of the World Series that night. Fox is contractually obligated to carry the game if this year's Series comes to that. Otherwise, the network has nothing to lose airing Obama programming in the time slot, given that its World Series fallback plan is always called "Some Rerun."
Late yesterday, ABC and Obama's camp were still in talks about whether the network will sell the first half of the time slot, which it had earmarked for another episode of hour-long dramedy "Pushing Daisies." The show is one of last year's freshman series hurt by the 100-day writers' strike and that the network is attempting to relaunch this fall, but so far without much luck. ABC execs may believe there is opportunity for "Pushing Daisies" to get more sampling on Oct. 29 if the network does not join in the Obama time buy.
With CBS and NBC's scripted programming scrubbed to make way for Obama, Fox possibly airing baseball and CW running the reality show "America's Next Top Model," "Pushing Daisies" would be the only scripted series in the time slot on broadcast network TV.
Less than $1 million is considerably under what NBC and CBS would otherwise get for the 10 or 11 ad "units" they run during that 8 to 8:30 p.m. half-hour.
But Obama is not getting a price break; the campaign will be charged what's called the "lowest unit cost," in compliance with federal law.
What will Obama get for his not quite $2 million? Wednesday night at 8 has not been a real ratings bonanza this season. This week, for instance, CBS averaged 7.2 million voting-age (18 years and up) viewers for the Julia Louis-Dreyfus sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine," and NBC clocked 5.7 million viewers in that age bracket for its resuscitation of "Knight Rider." ABC averaged 5.2 million voting-age viewers with "Pushing Daisies" and Fox 9.2 million with "Bones."
On the other hand, The Barack Obama Show might improve the time-slot performance for those networks carrying it. Pre-election programming has been among the most watched this year. Tuesday's presidential debate between John McCain and Obama drew about 66 million viewers, and, the week before, the vice presidential debate between Sen. Joe Biden and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin logged more than 73 million -- a record for a veep debate and the second-most-watched debate ever, of any kind, VP or presidential.
Obama's time-buy simulcast will be the first by a presidential candidate since Ross Perot peppered the prime-time landscape with a whopping 15 telecasts during his 1992 presidential bid. Overall, the Perot shows drew an average of nearly 12 million viewers. His one simulcast, on ABC and CBS, on Nov. 2, 1992, bagged 26 million.
The Obama campaign program airing on even two broadcast networks just six days before the election puts the squeeze on McCain to make some kind of similar move. Each camp, for instance, purchased a national ad during NBC's telecast of the highly rated Summer Olympics in Beijing.
But McCain's campaign agreed to accept federal matching funds, which limits his campaign spending in the weeks leading up to the election.
* * *
Barack Obama's representatives had been in talks with the broadcast networks about doing a roadblock paid show on other nights, including Nov. 3, the night before the election. But that's the night NBC has scheduled its traditional pre-election "Saturday Night Live" prime-time presidential bash.
This election cycle, "SNL" for the first time will air four election-related prime-time shows, the first of which aired Thursday with great ratings results. The 30-minute special, from 9:30 to 10 p.m., clocked nearly 11 million viewers. NBC said it was the most-watched regularly scheduled "Saturday Night Live" broadcast since Jan. 20, 2001.
The broadcast featured a spoof of the second presidential debate and its host, Tom Brokaw, as well as an expanded "Weekend Update" segment.
At this rate, the pre-election "SNL"-cast could conceivably give the show's 2000 presidential bash a ratings run for its money. That special, headlined with an appearance by candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore, attracted approximately 16 million viewers.
LOAD-DATE: October 11, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Dana Edelson -- Nbc; Fred Armisen and Darrell Hammond as Obama and McCain on "Saturday Night Live's" special. Like the real debates, it was a ratings winner.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
October 11, 2008 Saturday
McCain, GOP ads rip Obama over Ayers ties;
Make 'Chicago way' a liability
BYLINE: By S.A. Miller, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's campaign intensified attacks Friday on his rival's ties to shady Chicago characters such as 1970s bomber William Ayers, but Democrat Sen. Barack Obama vowed not to let it distract voters from the imploding economy, which he blamed on Republicans.
In a double whammy, the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) put out TV ads hammering Mr. Obama's association with Mr. Ayers, co-founder of the leftist Weather Underground, which took responsibility for a bombing spree that included the U.S. Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon a year later.
"When convenient, he worked with terrorist Bill Ayers. When discovered, he lied," intones a terse female announcer in the campaign's ad. "Obama. Blind ambition. Bad judgment."
Mr. Obama launched his first Senate campaign at Mr. Ayers' home in 1995 and the two served together from 1995 to 1999 on a charity board that distributed grants for alternative education projects and from 1999 to 2002 on the board of the anti-poverty Woods Fund.
The RNC spot highlighted the connections to Mr. Ayers; recently convicted political fixer Tony Rezko who helped Mr. Obama buy his $1.65 million Chicago home; and former U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley, a campaign chairman for Mr. Obama and a member of the city's political dynasty whom the voiceover describes as "heir to the Chicago machine."
"The Chicago way. Shady politics. That's Barack Obama's training," the voiceover says.
Mr. Obama responded on the stump in Ohio, saying Mr. McCain wanted to change the subject from the economy to save his flagging campaign.
"We've seen a barrage of nasty insinuations and attacks, and I'm sure we'll see much more over the next 25 days. We know what's coming. We know what they're going to do," Mr. Obama said at a campaign stop in Chillicothe. "They can run misleading ads and pursue the politics of anything goes. But it's not going to work. Not this time."
Mr. Obama said he was worried "about the Americans losing their jobs, and their homes, and their life savings," while Mr. McCain fretted about his poll numbers.
On the heels of Thursday's massive sell-off on Wall Street, both candidates on the campaign trail presented themselves as the best leader for troubled times and blamed the other for contributing to the economic crisis.
Mr. Obama blamed Bush administration policies for creating the economic mess and said Mr. McCain sided with Big Business over working Americans.
"We can't afford four more years of the economic theory that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else," Mr. Obama said. "We can't afford four more years of less regulation so that no one in Washington is watching anyone on Wall Street. We've seen where that's led us, and we're not going back."
Mr. McCain criticized Mr. Obama and "his Democratic buddies in Congress" for not taking up Republican plans to reform mortgage buyers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The two government-sponsored mortgage giants helped pump up the now-burst housing bubble through their seemingly insatiable appetite for buying subprime mortgages.
"I called for tighter restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that could have helped prevent this crisis from happening in the first place," Mr. McCain said at a rally in La Crosse, Wis. "My opponent was silent on the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. ... His most notable involvement with the housing issue was to be taking money from executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the very people who were causing the problem"
Mr. McCain touted his plan for a $300 billion government buyout of troubled mortgages to help at-risk homeowners stay in their houses. He also made a new proposal to let senior citizens keep their tax-exempt 401(k) retirement investments, which current law require they sell at age 70 1/2.
"We have to protect investors, especially those relying on their investments for retirement," he said. "To spare investors being forced to sell their stocks at just a time when the market is hurting the most, those rules should be suspended."
He promised tax relief for the middle class and business, measures to stanch rising food and fuel costs, cut government waste and erase the country's $10 trillion debt and balance the federal budget "by the end of my term in office."
Mr. Obama, looking to inspiration from Depression-era President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, called for Americans to reject panic.
"That's why we remember that some of the most famous words ever spoken by an American came from a president who took office in a time of turmoil: 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.' "
Mr. Obama called for fast action by Treasury to implement the $700 billion rescue approved last week and for coordinated steps to restore confidence in financial markets when finance ministers from top industrial countries meet with President Bush this weekend.
But he said the rescue package was just the beginning. He proposed following it was a "rescue plan for the middle class" that would deliver immediate relief to families struggling with rising prices, create jobs with New Deal-style federal public works projects and an extension of unemployment benefits.
"I've been fighting for this plan for months. My opponent has said nothing," Mr. Obama said. "And that is the choice in this election."
LOAD-DATE: October 12, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 10, 2008 Friday
Metro Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B8
Get tougher on crimes committed against civilians
The article about Ryan Jason Sink, charged with assaulting a 16-year-old girl at Valley View, is a telling example of how the criminal justice system is tilted against our most vulnerable citizens ("Man jailed following assault at mall," Sept. 30 news story).
The article indicated he had been charged with raping an unarmed woman at gunpoint in a garage in Roanoke in 2006. He successfully plea bargained and was convicted of sexual battery. The resulting sentence was a whopping six months in prison. This put him right back out on the street, and now he is accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old at Valley View.
If Sink had used a gun to assault an armed and trained Roanoke police officer in 2006, do you think we would have been worried about seeing him at Valley View in 2008? Do you think he would have been able to plead down? Do you think he would have been given the minimum sentence?
I'm not advocating a reduction in penalties for assaulting a police officer, but when are we going to provide our women and children the same protection as a cop?
Keith Franklin
Roanoke
Either choice leads to socialism
It's amazing anyone could be undecided about this election. We have two options and neither one is good.
Those who want the fast track to socialism and mediocrity can vote for Barack Obama and his minions; those who want the slow boat can vote for John McCain and his.
We are a mediocre nation on a downward slide. And when things go awry, it's always the private sector or capitalism to blame, never the largess or morass of bureaucracy of the feds.
Ronald Reagan was right: Government is the problem. The federal government is involved in every aspect of our lives and Obama wants even more. The continual giveaways of tax money as stimulus and transfer of wealth from one class to another is crippling this country and stifling productivity.
As we continue down this road, we'll be nothing more than your typical, nondescript socialist European country without the will to do or stop anything. The country is so split in ideology that neither candidate can nor will bring us together.
Partisan, yes; undecided, no. You really can't be, since there are such two distinct choices: fast track or slow track.
Allan Hewitt
Lexington
McCain isn't just one of the guys
It is said that people voted for President Bush because he was the kind of guy they'd like to have a beer with. Well, good luck. Aside from the fact that Bush no longer drinks, the man is an aristocrat. His pals aren't beer drinkers.
Sure, he says "ain't" a lot. But he is from a long line of very wealthy people. Bush, like the Bushes before him, went to Yale. Unlike Barack Obama at Harvard, he did not qualify for a scholarship.
Now John McCain is selling himself as another regular guy, a populist. His father and his grandfather were admirals, the aristocrats of the U.S. Navy -- gentlemen who probably never popped a pop top.
Maybe you aren't bothered by McCain's record of protecting his wealthy pals. Maybe -- even as our economy burns like napalm over the jungle -- it doesn't bother you that McCain was opposed to regulating Wall Street.
Vote for him because you prefer his skin color, or his war record, or you think old people are smarter than young people. But -- if you make under $5 million a year -- please don't vote for McCain because you think he'd like to have a beer with you.
Diane Goff
Blacksburg
Blame lawmakers for flap over fees
Molly Meador's article "Lack of fee money creates shortfall for electives" (Sept. 24 The Edge section) mentions all the players in the recent controversy over charging unlawful school fees save the most influential one -- the Virginia General Assembly.
No one -- least of all public education advocates -- wants to see teachers fret over inadequate supplies or pick up the tab themselves. But the blame for any shortfall in resources falls squarely at the feet of the General Assembly.
Virginia is the fifth wealthiest state in the nation, but only 33rd when it comes to investing in education at the state level. It's clear that lean times are ahead and that the stumbling economy is outside anyone's control, but the state's decisions on the revenue side have also helped bring us into the red.
Roanoke County Public Schools were right to stop charging illegal fees. And they were right to provide waivers of other fees to make sure no child is forced to miss an activity or choose an elective based on what she can afford.
It is up to the rest of us to make sure the state provides the resources teachers need to provide high quality instruction.
David Beidler
Attorney
Legal Aid Society of Roanoke Valley
Angela Ciolfi
Attorney JustChildren program Legal Aid Justice Center
Roanoke
Finding a scapegoat who's too convenient
Arthur Nunn tells us we should blame Congress for the current banking meltdown, and he points to several reasons as proof ("Place blame squarely on Congress," Sept. 25 commentary).
He first cites the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. Then-President Carter (how convenient for Republicans) apparently saw fit to enact a law to help the poor. He did this by lowering some requirements for them to qualify for a mortgage.
Nunn apparently makes a connection between a law passed decades ago that had worked well through four presidents' administrations and the failures of the current administration.
Nunn also neglects to mention that 80 percent of the current subprime loans were through lending institutions that had no affiliation with the Community Reinvestment Act. Next, Republicans will be telling us that House Bill S. 190 or Senate Bill HR 1461 could have averted this mess. Not likely. But they need to blame somebody.
Robert Pilla
Christiansburg
Warner's talent was for raising taxes
The main thrust of the Mark Warner campaign message is the untruth that he had to rescue the state government from a fiscal crisis caused by his predecessor. However, responsible news media in the state quickly acknowledged soon after Warner had used the fiscal crisis he conjured up to gain office, and had conned legislators to later pass a tax increase, that the fiscal crisis was largely a fiction.
Worse, however, was placing the crown of executive talent on his own head for having solved the crisis. It takes no executive ability to reconcile a budget disparity (real or perceived) by raising taxes.
Real executive skill, leadership and respect for the Virginia taxpayer would have been exhibited by working with the various spending entities to cut their budgets to conform to the money available (as he saw it).
Warner is one of those politicians of the Kennedy ilk. Boyish good looks, above-average oratorical skills, large personal fortune and a desire, perhaps, to achieve a place in history largely at the expense of the public purse. Jim Gilmore deserves to be elected to the United States Senate.
David Weiler
Union Hall
Goode's ad doesn't reflect well on him
Re: "Candidates clash over TV ad's content" (Sept. 30 news story):
What does Virgil Goode's most recent television ad say about his character? If he is willing to distort Tom Perriello's image in such a way as to conjure up fears of a Muslim, Hispanic or Taliban candidate, how can we trust what he says about Perriello's positions or his own record?
One example: Perriello attended college in New York; he is not a New York lawyer.
At this time in our country when cooperation, understanding and honesty are paramount to our well-being and security, can we afford to have someone as divisive as Goode representing the 5th District?
Take some time to read Perriello's record at perrielloforcongress.com. Examine his work in this country and Africa to bring people together and solve problems. Contrast that with Goode's poor judgment about this ad.
You also might want to ask Goode why he suddenly backed out of a debate with Perriello that had been scheduled for six months.
Sara Braaten
Bruce Johannessen
Bedford
LOAD-DATE: October 11, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 10, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
mccain, palin haven't been seen in state much this year
By Julian Walker
The Virginian-Pilot
richmond
By the time John McCain and Sarah Palin campaign in Virginia Beach on Monday - their second appearance in the state this election season - Barack Obama and Joe Biden, their Democratic rivals in the presidential race, collectively will have been to Virginia nearly a dozen times.
That disparity provides a window into the two campaigns in this battleground state.
Though neither side will talk about staff sizes and budgets in Virginia, objective measures suggest that Obama's war chest has given him more freedom to lavish resources on the state.
"Obama can afford to make Virginia competitive," said Quentin Kidd, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University in Newport News.
McCain is limited by the restrictions of public campaign financing he accepted - money and rules Obama eschewed after initially saying he would abide by them. That has enabled Obama to run a more ambitious campaign here than McCain, whose state motto seems to be "less is more."
And it may explain why Obama has visited more often, has more than twice as many local campaign offices, has sent high-profile surrogates and is running about double the local television commercials across the state.
Still, money spent does not assure election results.
"In a state with almost 5 million voters, you're not going to win a presidential contest simply by having more staffers or store front offices," said University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato. It is that reality - coupled with the notion that Virginia's political landscape remains favorable to the GOP - that comforts Republicans worried about polls showing a tight race in the state.
"Barack Obama still has to do well in a traditional red state," said Jerry Kilgore, a former Virginia attorney general who is a state co-chairman for McCain's campaign.
"We know Barack Obama has put a lot of time and money in Virginia, and we know it's going to be close," he continued. "But we feel confident in the end that McCain and Palin are going to win because they share Virginia values."
Partisan cheerleading notwithstanding, historic voting patterns favor the GOP here , despite recent Democratic success in statewide votes.
That's why McCain has relied on Kilgore, former Gov. George Allen, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, Attorney General Bob McDonnell and other Virginia Republicans to sell his message. They are known quantities, people who "talk directly to the voters in Virginia," said McCain spokeswoman Gail Gitcho. "They have a relationship with them. They understand them. They understand their values."
McCain strategists believe that personal touch makes up for whatever their Virginia operation lacks in scope.
In many ways, the people each campaign dispatches are an indication of the voters they want to woo, Old Dominion University communication professor Burton St. John observed.
So when the rapper Nas appears at an Obama voter registration drive, as he did recently at Hampton University, it is an appeal to young voters.
The goal for any surrogate is "to maximize a sense of relationship based on who are the most likely voters," St. John said.
Older people, who are more consistent voters, trend Republican, though Obama is banking on newly registered folks, including young and minority voters, to change the calculus in his favor.
Despite the appeal of any given personality, famous or not, there is no substitute for the candidates themselves.
On that measure, Obama is ahead of McCain in Virginia.
Clark Stevens, an Obama spokesman, said the campaign has made conscious decisions since securing the nomination to focus on the state, starting with a visit by the candidate to Bristol days after the primary season ended in June.
Including that stop, Obama has visited Virginia six times, Biden has made four trips, and each man's spouse has appeared twice. McCain and Palin held a rally in Fairfax last month that drew thousands, in their sole previous visit to the state.
That's "a very lopsided courtship so far in favor of the Democrats," said Sabato. "McCain needs to show more interest in the state."
Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com
in hampton roads A surge of voters may be too much to handle, a study says. Also, poll workers get training. big difference
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has visited Virginia six times and Joe Biden, his running mate, has made four trips.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, will campaign in Virginia Beach on Monday. It will be their second appearance in the state.
LOAD-DATE: October 10, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 10, 2008 Friday
Suburban Edition
Candidates Spar Over McCain Plan for Loans;
Proposal Introduced In Second Debate
BYLINE: Robert Barnes and Michael D. Shear; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH, Ohio, Oct. 9
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Thursday said rival John McCain's mortgage rescue plan "punishes" taxpayers and rewards lending institutions that created the crisis, while McCain charged that his opponent's response showed a lack of concern for homeowners.
The mortgage proposal became the latest point of strife between two campaigns that have tried to turn discussions about the economic crisis into questions about their opponent's fitness for office. Echoing a theme of the past several days, McCain said Obama's moves have shown a lack of judgment, while the senator from Illinois continued to cast his opponent's reactions as uneven and rash.
On a day when some conservatives also critiqued McCain's proposal, Obama used the "risky idea" as a way to describe McCain as a desperate candidate "lurching" from idea to idea as he tries to find an answer to the economic crisis that has roiled the presidential campaign.
"His first response to the housing crisis in March was that homeowners shouldn't get any help at all," Obama told a crowd at a minor-league baseball park in Dayton, part of a two-day swing through the battleground state of Ohio.
"Then a few weeks ago, he put out a plan that basically ignored homeowners. Now, in the course of 12 hours, he's ended up with a plan that punishes taxpayers, rewards banks and won't solve our housing crisis."
During the presidential debate Tuesday night, McCain proposed having the government buy and refinance troubled home loans. On Wednesday, his campaign said that the Treasury Department would buy the bad mortgages at face value even though home prices may have dropped below the value of the mortgages. Taxpayers would make up the shortfall.
McCain aides said that structure is necessary to make the plan work, and at town hall meeting in Wisconsin, the senator from Arizona and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, slammed Obama for not supporting the proposal.
"He's opposed to us helping the homeowners of America," McCain said. "Do you want to help the homeowners of America, or do you want to help Wall Street? That's the question here."
Obama agreed on the question, just not the answer.
"Banks wouldn't take a loss, but taxpayers would take a loss," he said. "It's a plan that would guarantee that you, the American taxpayers, would lose by handing over $300 billion to underwrite the kind of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street that got us into this mess."
Obama aides were delighted to send out copies of a critique of the plan from editors of the conservative National Review that said "McCain's plan would also be a gift to lenders who abandoned any sense of prudence during the boom years." And the Obama campaign quickly cobbled together a television ad that said McCain was "putting bad actors ahead of taxpayers. We can't afford more of the same."
Speaking at an evening rally at Shawnee State University, Obama said: "Today, millions of Americans lost more of their investments and hard-earned retirement savings as the stock market took another significant plunge. Now, it is critical that the Treasury Department move as quickly as possible to implement the rescue plan that passed Congress so we can ease this credit crisis that's preventing businesses large and small from getting the loans they need. It's causing instability in our market. Understand, this is not just an issue for big businesses or banks in New York."
On Thursday, the stock market lost nearly 700 points and dropped below 9,000 for the first time in five years. Neither McCain or Palin mentioned the stock market on the campaign trail, and their campaign did not release a comment on it.
For several weeks, McCain's campaign has become more aggressive in painting Obama as dangerous, using the word in advertisements and on the stump. The idea, aides said, is to raise fundamental questions about Obama's ability to lead the nation.
On foreign policy, they question his judgment for opposing the "surge" strategy in Iraq. On the economy, they accuse him of being a "co-conspirator" with those who caused the crisis.
At the town hall meeting, McCain charged that Obama "did not lift a finger" to stop the accumulation of bad debts by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac despite what McCain said were Obama's associations with top officials of the organizations.
More than that, McCain essentially calls Obama a liar, a man whose background is one of shifting positions, inflated claims and questionable behavior. His campaign has repeatedly attacked Obama in the past week for his relationship with William Ayers, who was part of a domestic terrorist group during the Vietnam War.
In Strongsville, Ohio, on Wednesday night, Palin criticized Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., as looking backward in an attempt to assign blame. When McCain took the microphone, he did just that.
He said Obama has neither told the truth about what he has done nor answered critics. Instead, McCain said, Obama has challenged his credibility. "Let me reply in the plainest terms I know," he said. "I don't need lessons about telling the truth to the American people. If I ever needed an improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn't seek the advice of a Chicago politician."
Obama has also continually couched the argument in terms of whether McCain can be counted on to be stable in a crisis. In recent days, Obama and his surrogates have emphasized words such as "lurching" and "erratic" to describe the Republican, while a campaign ad also accuses McCain of being "erratic."
"This is the kind of erratic behavior we've been seeing out of Senator McCain," Obama said in Dayton. "You remember the first day of this crisis, he came out and said the economy was fundamentally sound. Then two hours later, he said we were in a crisis.
"I don't think we can afford that kind of erratic and uncertain leadership in these uncertain times. We need steady leadership in the White House. We need a president we can trust in times of crisis. And that's why I'm running for president of the United States of America."
Staff writer Dan Balz in Dayton, Ohio, contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 10, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Jim Young -- Reuters; Sen. Barack Obama greets supporters during a rally at Ault Park in Cincinnati. In Dayton, he accused Sen. John McCain of "erratic and uncertain leadership."
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The Washington Post
October 10, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
Obama & Friends: Judge Not?
BYLINE: Charles Krauthammer
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A19
Convicted felon Tony Rezko. Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It is hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. Yet let the McCain campaign raise the issue, and the mainstream media begin fulminating about dirty campaigning tinged with racism and McCarthyite guilt by association.
But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque and self-contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it, as conventional wisdom holds, in any way illegitimate.
McCain has only himself to blame for the bad timing. He should months ago have begun challenging Obama's associations, before the economic meltdown allowed the Obama campaign (and the mainstream media, which is to say the same thing) to dismiss the charges as an act of desperation by the trailing candidate.
McCain had his chance back in April when the North Carolina Republican Party ran a gubernatorial campaign ad that included the linking of Obama with Jeremiah Wright. The ad was duly denounced by the New York Times and other deep thinkers as racist.
This was patently absurd. Racism is treating people differently and invidiously on the basis of race. Had any white presidential candidate had a close 20-year association with a white preacher overtly spreading race hatred from the pulpit, that candidate would have been not just universally denounced and deemed unfit for office but written out of polite society entirely.
Nonetheless, John McCain in his infinite wisdom, and with his overflowing sense of personal rectitude, joined the braying mob in denouncing that perfectly legitimate ad, saying it had no place in any campaign. In doing so, McCain unilaterally disarmed himself, rendering off-limits Obama's associations, an issue that even Hillary Clinton addressed more than once.
Obama's political career was launched with Ayers giving him a fundraiser in his living room. If a Republican candidate had launched his political career at the home of an abortion-clinic bomber -- even a repentant one -- he would not have been able to run for dogcatcher in Podunk. And Ayers shows no remorse. His only regret is that he "didn't do enough."
Why are these associations important? Do I think Obama is as corrupt as Rezko? Or shares Wright's angry racism or Ayers's unreconstructed 1960s radicalism?
No. But that does not make these associations irrelevant. They tell us two important things about Obama.
First, his cynicism and ruthlessness. He found these men useful, and use them he did. Would you attend a church whose pastor was spreading racial animosity from the pulpit? Would you even shake hands with -- let alone serve on two boards with -- an unrepentant terrorist, whether he bombed U.S. military installations or abortion clinics?
Most Americans would not, on the grounds of sheer indecency. Yet Obama did, if not out of conviction then out of expediency. He was a young man on the make, an unknown outsider working his way into Chicago politics. He played the game with everyone, without qualms and with obvious success.
Obama is not the first politician to rise through a corrupt political machine. But he is one of the rare few to then have the audacity to present himself as a transcendent healer, hovering above and bringing redemption to the "old politics" -- of the kind he had enthusiastically embraced in Chicago in the service of his own ambition.
Second, and even more disturbing than the cynicism, is the window these associations give on Obama's core beliefs. He doesn't share the Rev. Wright's poisonous views of race nor Ayers's views, past and present, about the evil that is American society. But Obama clearly did not consider these views beyond the pale. For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond.
Until now. Today, on the threshold of the presidency, Obama concedes the odiousness of these associations, which is why he has severed them. But for the years in which he sat in Wright's pews and shared common purpose on boards with Ayers, Obama considered them a legitimate, indeed unremarkable, part of social discourse.
Do you? Obama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect. There is a difference between temperament and character. Equanimity is a virtue. Tolerance of the obscene is not.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
LOAD-DATE: October 10, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 10, 2008 Friday
Suburban Edition
Obama Hits McCain on Mortgages
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
THE AD
Narrator: In a time of crisis, our leaders' judgment is tested. On Tuesday, an announcement.
McCain: I would order the secretary of the Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America.
Narrator: On Wednesday, the details. McCain would shift the burden from lenders to taxpayers, guaranteeing a loss of taxpayer money. Who wins? The same lenders that caused the crisis in the first place. Putting bad actors ahead of taxpayers? We can't afford more of the same.
ANALYSIS
This Barack Obama ad again tries to tie John McCain to the mess on Wall Street, this time by using his own words at Tuesday's presidential debate. The $300 billion plan, which would be funded under existing legislation, has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum.
The ad shows an article from CNNMoney.com that says "McCain mortgage plan shifts costs to taxpayers." Aides to the senator from Arizona don't deny this, saying that the effort is justified because of the magnitude of the banking crisis and the need to stabilize the housing market.
Media reports have criticized the plan from the left and the right, saying that it would lower rescue standards to the point that lenders would reap a windfall -- and irresponsible homeowners would be bailed out. In that sense, it is accurate to say "the lenders that caused the crisis" would benefit.
What the spot doesn't mention is that Obama voted for the $700 billion federal bailout, which, with stricter standards, would also aid lenders by buying up distressed mortgages. The senator from Illinois, whose aides have decided the ailing economy is the overriding issue, has hammered McCain on the subject in recent ads. The "more of the same" line, along with an obligatory shot of McCain with President Bush, has become a signature element.
Video of this ad can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
LOAD-DATE: October 10, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 10, 2008 Friday
Suburban Edition
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
OBAMA'S PAST
McCain Co-Chair Presses Drug Use
Former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating, a co-chair of John McCain's presidential campaign, called Barack Obama "very extreme" on a radio show Thursday and raised the issue of Obama's past drug use.
"He ought to admit, 'You know, I've got to be honest with you. I was a guy of the street,' " Keating said. " 'I was way to the left. I used cocaine. I voted liberally, but I'm back at the center.' " Keating made the comments on the radio show of comedian Dennis Miller.
Miller, a conservative, offered a long critique of Obama, calling him "the most liberal guy" and saying that the "obfuscation" and "smoke and mirrors" surrounding his campaign were "Clintonesque."
Miller did correct Keating on the accusation that Obama was hiding his drug use.
"Wait, I've got to jump in, Frank. He has copped to the blow use, right?" Miller said, referring to Obama's admission of cocaine use in his autobiography. "I mean, he did so in his own book; he said he did blow."
"Oh, yes, he did," Keating said.
In 1999, Keating was quick to weigh in on rumors about George W. Bush's alleged drug use as a young man. The former FBI agent did himself some real damage with the Bush campaign when he told an interviewer that Bush should answer questions "about private conduct."
-- Robert Barnes
WEATHER UNDERGROUND
RNC Ads to Link Obama to Radical
The Republican National Committee is launching television ads Friday in Indiana and Wisconsin that invoke the name of former Weather Underground member William Ayers and detail his ties to Barack Obama, the first such ads from either the national party committee or the campaign of John McCain so far.
"Senator Obama is crying foul and declaring his association with such individuals to be off limits," said Brad Todd, who is overseeing the RNC's independent expenditure arm. "Fortunately, with the First Amendment still intact, he does not get to decide that."
The RNC ad is the latest -- and most serious -- attempt by Republicans to make Obama's association with Ayers an issue in the campaign.
-- Chris Cillizza
A SHOW OF FUNDRAISING FORCE
Obama Buys Chunks of Prime Time
Barack Obama's campaign said it had purchased a half-hour of airtime on CBS and NBC for prime-time political infomercials to air Oct. 29, and it is reportedly looking to make similar buys on other networks.
The network buys -- which could cost the campaign around $2 million each -- underscore Obama's massive fundraising advantage over John McCain.
Coming just six days before the election, Obama's prime-time ads could put pressure on McCain to respond with a similar national message. But McCain's resources are limited; he agreed to accept federal matching funds that limit his campaign to $84 million in September and October -- though the Republican National Committee is helping out.
But both Obama and McCain have run national ads during this campaign, most notably during NBC's telecast of the Summer Olympics.
-- Paul Farhi
LOAD-DATE: October 10, 2008
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BYLINE: By John McCaslin, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE THE BELTWAY; A07
STILL NOT READY?
Several of the 2008 presidential campaign battleground states are "not prepared" to meet the challenges of administering the Nov. 4 election, especially in "minority" precincts, where turnout is expected to be unprecedented.
The national voter protection organization Advancement Project obtained precinct records on allocations of voting machines and poll workers in Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In certain jurisdictions, it reports, "the allocation of polling place resources is likely to have a disproportionate impact on communities of color. In other words, there will be fewer voting machines or poll workers per voter in high minority precincts than in low minority precincts."
Judith Browne-Dianis, co-director of the group, now warns: "If they do not prepare adequately for the potential turnout, what could be the greatest collective exercise in democratic participation in our nation's history may be stained by government failure."
CRY, MICHELLE, CRY
The campaign desk of the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) has issued a sharp critique of questions posed Wednesday night to Michelle Obama on CNN's "Larry King Live," saying Larry King did all he could to make Democratic candidate Barack Obama's wife out to be a victim, rather than asking her about important issues and policy.
CJR published this persistent line of questioning from Mr. King:
"Do you take offense to 'that one'?"
"Did it in any way offend you?"
"How about you and he together, looking at television, and you see a commercial on the other side that really lambasts you?"
"Sarah Palin has been taking the role of attack dog in recent days. Here is an example (he plays the 'palling around with terrorists' clip) and we'll get a comment. That don't get you mad?"
"When someone [says] - and she's running for vice president - that your husband associates with terrorists it's got to upset you, I think?"
"So you bear her no umbrage?"
"The Tennessean is quoting Cindy McCain saying your husband is running the dirtiest campaign in American history. Tell me have you no reaction to that ... it doesn't hurt you?"
MAKE ROOM, ABE
Editors of the Wasilla Iron Dog Gazette were more than amused when reporters from virtually every major news organization in the country "descended en masse on tiny Wasilla, Alaska, demanding to know, who is the real Sarah Palin?"
Now, these Alaska
newspapermen who covered Mrs Palin as a teenage basketball star, beauty queen, school board member, mayor, governor and now vice-presidential candidate, have gone and gotten themselves a big-time publisher, HarperCollins, in order to unveil a private collection of Palin family photos that the big-city reporters did not find.
Bear in mind that "Terminatrix: The Sarah Palin Chronicles," is purely a work of satire. However, its digitally altered images provide a fascinating running commentary of Mrs. Palin's life, ending sometime in the future with her chiseled cheekbones atop Mount Rushmore.
BUY BEER
"Take financial advice from a DUI lawyer?" Bob Battle, who practices law in Virginia, writes to ask Inside the Beltway.
Why not a little levity to end the week, Mr. Battle, especially given what Americans have endured of late on the economic front? What's your advice, sir?
"If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49 today," he begins.
"If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33 today.
"If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0 today.
"But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for a recycling refund, you would have received $214."
Mr. Battle, who has gained national fame in DUI defense (and perhaps is trying to drum up a little business here), dubs his unique analysis the "401-Keg."
* John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or jmccaslin@washingtontimes.com
LOAD-DATE: October 10, 2008
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 9, 2008 Thursday
Final Edition
Presidential rivals agree: It's the economy
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-4
With the deepening U.S. economic crisis rippling around the globe, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain seem to agree the question facing anxious voters is: Who do you trust?
"All we heard from Sen. McCain was more of the same Bush economics that led us into this mess," Obama said in Indianapolis the day after their second debate. "He thinks we won't notice" downsides of his health care proposals, but "we're not going to be hoodwinked. We're not going to be bamboozled. We're not going to let him get away with it."
In Bethlehem, Pa., McCain shot back: "I don't need lessons about telling the truth to American people." And, McCain said, if he ever did, he "probably wouldn't seek advice from a Chicago politician." On taxes, health care and subprime mortgages, McCain said Obama "won't tell you" his real record.
Each also rolled out new TV commercials suggesting his rival was not telling the truth, and campaign aides for both launched other character attacks.
With the election in four weeks and the final debate in one, Obama leads in key states but has yet to sew up the race. The 47-year-old, first-term Illinois senator is still working to dispel skepticism that he has what it takes to be president. McCain is searching for a way to marshal support as the spreading economic woes cut against almost all Republicans after President Bush's eight years in the White House.
In Tuesday night's debate, both Obama and McCain railed against Washington and Wall Street and belittled special interests and lobbyists; each cast himself as the only candidate who will fight for everyday Americans. Also, Obama argued that McCain would perpetuate the policies of the unpopular Bush, while McCain cast Obama as a risky liberal who backs more government spending.
In separate statements as the day began, Obama and McCain applauded the Fed's emergency interest-rate cut. Each portrayed himself as the only one on the side of anxious Americans watching the economic upheaval hit their retirement accounts and hinder their ability to get loans.
"I am committed to protecting the American worker in this crisis," McCain said. He promoted his plan, announced at the debate the night before, that would direct the Treasury Department to buy up bad home mortgages by using nearly half the $700 billion from the recent bailout package. "I will get the economy back on track," McCain added.
Initially, Obama sought to reclaim a piece of McCain's mortgage proposal. He previously had said the government should consider doing just that, and yesterday said the Treasury Department officials "should use the authority they already have to purchase troubled assets, including mortgages." He also renewed his call for a second economic stimulus package for the middle class, saying: "More urgent and vigorous action is necessary to stem this crisis."
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 9, 2008 Thursday
State Edition
N. Carolina no safe bet for GOP;
Obama presses hard in state Democrats have rarely taken
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-5
It's no coincidence that Barack Obama did his preparation for this week's presidential debate in North Carolina's western mountains. Or that on the day of the debate, Michelle Obama was rallying voters on the state's Atlantic Coast. Or that the Democratic nominee spent the morning after the first presidential debate in the state.
John McCain? Voters here haven't seen him in six months.
North Carolina hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter and was on nobody's list of battleground states a year ago. But now, public polls and an avalanche of Democratic voter registrations indicate North Carolina is no longer a safe Republican state. And McCain's efforts to win its 15 electoral votes don't match Obama's full-court press.
"I am surprised - and I think you've got to give it to Obama," said longtime North Carolina GOP operative Ballard Everett. "He ramped up in North Carolina early, he's moved out there and kept those troops working hard."
Yesterday, Obama began airing a new TV ad in North Carolina that blamed McCain for the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the state.
The ad - "Mills" - highlights a North Carolina yarn company forced to close 17 plants in the state and lay off 2,600 workers after several major trade deals - which McCain supported - allowed the company's customers to import cheaper yarn.
Obama and his troops have a lot of history to overcome: President Bush twice won North Carolina by double-digit margins, and White House candidates from both parties have largely ignored the state since 1992.
Media General staff writer Neil H. Simon contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 9, 2008 Thursday
State Edition
Obama's TV ad buys dwarf those of McCain;
In the commonwealth and other battlegrounds, Republican is outspent
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-1
Heading into their final month of campaigning, Democrat
|
Barack Obama
|
last week outspent Republican presidential rival
|
John McCain
|
on television ads by more than 3 to 1 in battleground states Virginia and Florida, and by 8 to 1 in North Carolina.
|
For the week from Sept. 28 through Oct. 4,
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Obama
|
spent $2 million on television ads in the commonwealth, compared with $547,000 for McCain, according to a study released yesterday.
|
The nonpartisan study by the Wisconsin Advertising Project also showed that nearly all of the TV ads aired by the McCain team carried "negative" or harsh overtones, reflecting the more aggressive rhetoric heard on the stump from McCain and running mate Sarah Palin.
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The study said 34 percent of
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Obama's
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ads over those same days could be considered "negative."
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Ten of the 15 states where both candidates advertised - including Virginia, Florida and North Carolina - were won by
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President Bush
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in 2004.
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"This campaign is being played on the Republican side of the field this year," said Ken Goldstein, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the advertising project. Goldstein said that
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Obama's
|
fundraising advantage is allowing him to spend his TV ad money in more states.
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Nationally, the study found
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Obama and McCain
|
combined to spend $28 million from Sept. 28 through Oct. 4 on TV ads.
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Obama
|
had a $6 million edge in spending over McCain and the Republican National Committee, which is helping McCain air his ads.
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Ohio, a traditional swing state in presidential elections, drew the most advertising dollars as the
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Obama
|
camp spent $2.2 million and the McCain team spent $1.7 million.
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Florida - where Tampa, Orlando and Miami are three of
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Obama's
|
six busiest TV advertising markets nationwide - attracted the second highest spending.
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Obama
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spent $2.2 million in the state, while the McCain camp spent $659,000.
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Virginia ranked fifth among all states after Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
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North Carolina ranked eighth, but the advertising dollars there were even more lopsided.
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Obama
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spent $1.2 million, while McCain spent $148,000.
|
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Obama's
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busiest six markets for airing ads were Las Vegas, Tampa, Denver, Orlando, Milwaukee, and Miami. McCain's six busiest markets were Denver, Las Vegas, Green Bay, Wis., Cleveland, Milwaukee and Reno, Nev.
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Despite spending $1.2 million in Michigan, McCain by Thursday pulled his campaign out of the state.
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While the study found that "nearly 100 percent" of McCain's TV ads were negative last week, compared to 34 percent for
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Obama,
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it also reported that both candidates' campaigns have been more negative on TV than their 2004 predecessors,
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President Bush
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and Democratic
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Sen. John Kerry.
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During all of 2004, 64 percent of the Republican Bush campaign's ads were negative, while to date 73 percent of McCain's have been. And 34 percent of Kerry's ads were negative, compared to 61 percent of
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Obama's
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ad so far.
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Buying time
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Here is how much the
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Obama and McCain
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campaigns spent on television advertising in key battleground states from Sept. 28 through Oct. 4.
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McCain
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Obama
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Colorado $801,000 $980,000
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Florida $659,000 $2,213,000
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Indiana $179,000 $614,000
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Iowa $227,000 $172,000
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Michigan $1,250,000 $1,590,000
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Minnesota $608,000 $121,000
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Missouri $193,000 $492,000
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North Carolina $148,000 $1,236,000
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New Hampshire $160,000 $354,000
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New Mexico $144,000 $185,000
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Nevada $329,000 $616,000
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Ohio $1,727,000 $2,218,000
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Pennsylvania $1,645,000 $2,202,000
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Virginia $547,000 $2,057,000
|
Wisconsin $896,000 $1,189,000
|
SOURCE: Wisconsin Advertising Project
|
Contact Billy House at (202) 662-7673 or
|
bhouse@mediageneral.com
|
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 9, 2008 Thursday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
States need help
Wall Street's crisis is walloping state finances across the country. The most urgent problems are in states -- like California -- that rely on short-term financing to help pay their bills until tax revenues start coming in later on in the fiscal year. This is about the safest debt on the market. Still, over the past few weeks, states have been shut out of the credit markets like everybody else.
Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California warned that his state could be forced to seek $7 billion in emergency federal loans if the lending markets don't recover their senses quickly. ... Washington must step up.
-- The New York Times
Scare tactics
This year's measure ... But despite the changes, the same hard-core opposition remains -- not because opponents are worried about the welfare of children, but because they are opposed to anything they see as a limitation on abortion ...
-- Margaret Pearson, communications director for the Yes on Four campaign, in the Los Angeles Times
Wachovia's suitors
In the convoluted story of how a deal with Citigroup to buy Wachovia was scuttled after Wells Fargo stepped up with a better offer, only one thing seems really clear: The Wells Fargo offer is the better deal for taxpayers.
Citigroup's initial offer depended on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. guaranteeing hundreds of billions of dollars in potentially bad loans held by Wachovia. The offer by Wells Fargo required no guarantees or other federal assistance.
-- The Roanoke Times
Lighten up
Joe McCain, brother of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, called the Arlington and Alexandria portions of Northern Virginia "communist country" at a rally in Leesburg on Saturday. He apologized as the crowd laughed.
Now, we could say, "there the Republicans go again, smearing the Democrats for political points," but we prefer to take the comment as it was intended -- as a joke. This is not Joseph McCarthy's 1950s America where fears of communist infiltration into the country were prevalent and suspicion abounded.
-- Manassas Journal Messenger
Do facts matter?
The current financial bailout crisis has propelled Barack Obama back into a substantial lead over John McCain -- which is astonishing in view of which man and which party has had the most to do with bringing on this crisis.
It raises the question: Do facts matter? Or are Obama's rhetoric and the media's spin enough to make facts irrelevant?
Fact Number One: It was liberal Democrats, led by Sen. Christopher Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, who for years -- including the present year -- denied that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taking big risks that could lead to a financial crisis.
-- Thomas Sowell
LOAD-DATE: October 9, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 9, 2008 Thursday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Treasury considers ownership in banks to restore confidence Treasury considers ownership stake in banks in effort to restore confidence
From wire reports
WASHINGTON
Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many U.S. banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials.
Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives them the authority to inject cash directly into banks that request it. Such a move would quickly strengthen banks' balance sheets and, officials hope, persuade them to resume lending. In return, the law gives the Treasury the right to take ownership positions in banks, including healthy ones.
The Treasury plan, while still in preliminary stages, resembles one announced Wednesday in Britain. Under that plan, the British government would offer banks like the Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC Holdings up to $87 billion to shore up their capital in exchange for preference shares. It also would provide a guarantee of about $430 billion to help banks refinance debt.
On Wednesday, for the second consecutive day, the Federal Reserve took action in hopes of staving off a global financial collapse. And again U.S. financial markets failed to calm, extending losses for a sixth straight day while shrugging off a Fed-led, globally coordinated half-point cut in interest rates.
Under normal circumstances, rate cuts are a cause for cheer because they lower the cost of borrowing for consumers and business, spurring economic activity. But the fear on Wall Street is proving difficult to contain.
Before U.S. markets opened Wednesday, and after steep stock losses in Asia and Europe, the Fed announced a coordinated half-point interest-rate cut with central banks in England, China, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland and the European Central Bank. It lowered the benchmark U.S. federal funds rate to 1.5 percent, bringing down the prime rate that commercial banks charge their best customers to 4.5 percent.
The coordinated rate cut was unprecedented and surprising. Never before has the Fed issued an announcement on interest rates jointly with another central bank.
Yet traders in New York, ignoring the very rate cut they'd been clamoring for, began selling stocks at the opening bell, and the Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 200 points within a minute of opening.
It bounced back and forth between loss and gain for much of the day before closing down 189.01 points, to 9,258.10. The S&P 500 finished off 11.29 points, to 984.94, and the Nasdaq too was down 14.55 points, to 1740.33.
"Markets are manic depressive, and they're really in a depressed state right now," said Alan Blinder, a former Fed vice chairman, now a Princeton University economics professor.
Right now, loan rates don't matter much because most large banks won't lend.
So while Wednesday's Fed action may help eventually, it has very little immediate impact for ordinary Americans who are finding it difficult to borrow to buy a home or car.
Credit card users may see some benefit, however, particularly if they have good credit. Borrowing costs should also drop almost immediately for consumers with variable-rate home equity and other loans tied to the prime interest rate.
As Wall Street staggered, the proposal for the Treasury Department to take an ownership stake in banks, officials say, emerged as one of the most favored new options being discussed in Washington. The appeal is that it would directly address the worries that banks have about lending to one another and to other customers.
The concern is that the bailout law calls for limits on executive pay when capital is directly injected into a bank. The law directs Treasury officials to write compensation standards that would discourage executives from taking "unnecessary and excessive risks" and that would allow the government to recover any bonus pay that is based on stated earnings that turn out to be inaccurate.
In addition, any bank in which the Treasury holds a stake would be barred from paying its chief executive a "golden parachute" package.
Treasury officials worry that aggressive government purchases, if not done properly, could alarm bank shareholders by appearing to be punitive or could be interpreted by the market as a sign that target banks were failing.
There is no shortage of ideas, ranging from the partial nationalization proposal to a guarantee by the Fed of all lending between banks.
Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, on Wednesday refined his proposal - revealed in a debate with the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, the night before - to allow millions of Americans to refinance their mortgages with government assistance.
As Washington casts about for Plan B, investors are clamoring for the Fed to lower interest rates to nearly zero. Some are also calling for governments worldwide to provide another round of economic stimulus through expensive public works projects.
Yet behind the scramble for solutions lies a hard reality: The financial crisis has mutated into a global downturn that economists warn will be painful and protracted.
"Everyone is conditioned to getting instant relief from the medicine, and that is unrealistic," said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics, a forecasting firm in Lexington, Mass. "As hard as it is for investors and jobholders and politicians in an election year, this crisis will not end without a lot more pain."
This story was compiled from reports by The New York Times, McClatchy News Service and The Associated Press.
have we hit bottom?
Exactly one year ago, the Dow was at an all-time high. With Wednesday's dive, it's now down 35 percent. Can we reverse the trend? Meet the man in charge of the answer in today's Business.
Busioness
LOAD-DATE: October 9, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 9, 2008 Thursday
Every Edition
10 Steps Through Virginia to the White House
BYLINE: Tim Craig; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: EXTRAS; Pg. PW04
With less than one month to go until the Nov. 4 elections, Virginia is shaping up to be a make-or-break state for John McCain's hopes of winning the White House.
Despite the state's long history of supporting GOP presidential nominees, Barack Obama appears to have made major inroads in his battle to win Virginia's 13 electoral votes.
Several recent polls show Obama tied or narrowly leading McCain, which is making Republicans nervous. Yet this is still Virginia, a historically conservative state that last backed a Democratic nominee in 1964. So Obama will have to fight hard until the end, regardless of what the polls say. McCain hopes to make up some ground Monday when he and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, attend a rally in Virginia Beach and she goes on to a rally in Richmond.
But here are 10 things to watch over the next month to help gauge whether McCain or Obama will have the upper hand on Election Day.
1) What role does Mark R. Warner play for Obama?
Warner, the Democratic candidate for Senate, remains one of Virginia's most popular politicians. According to polls, he holds a 30-point lead over Republican James S. Gilmore III in the battle of the former governors. In 2006, Warner played a key role in helping Sen. James Webb (D) get across the finish line in his campaign. Warner starred in a Webb television ad that was widely aired.
Many Democrats say they think Warner can play an equally important role for Obama this year, especially in rural Virginia, where some voters might have doubts about the Illinois senator. Warner's staff is working diligently behind the scenes in support of Obama, but it's unclear how public the candidate will be with his support. Even though he has a big lead over Gilmore, Warner is still hoping to attract support from moderate Republicans. Those voters could shun Warner if he takes a high-profile role in Obama's campaign.
2) What does Sen. John W. Warner do on behalf of McCain?
John Warner is another Virginia politician who has a reputation for being able to move some undecided voters, especially moderate Republicans and voters in Hampton Roads. In 2006, Warner tried desperately to shore up Republican George Allen in his race against Webb but came up short. John Warner is a big McCain supporter, and has had several conference calls with reporters to tout his candidacy. If the retiring senator takes a more high-profile role, such as appearing in a television ad, he could keep some independents and moderate Republicans from defecting to Obama.
3) What is the state of Richmond's banking industry?
Four of the top 12 employers in Richmond are affiliated with the finance industry. Capitol One, Bank of America, SunTrust and Wachovia employ a combined 20,000 people, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Many of them live in suburban Richmond, where Republicans have traditionally racked up huge margins on Election Day.
But with the credit crisis, Richmond's banking industry could suffer. The economic uncertainty might cause some traditional GOP voters to migrate toward Obama. If Obama eats into historical GOP margins in places such as Chesterfield County, it will be nearly impossible for McCain to win statewide.
4) How many absentee ballots from service members are being returned to Hampton Roads?
Hampton Roads is home to the world's largest naval base, and service members can play a big role in the outcome of presidential contests there.
In 2004, large numbers of military members serving overseas voted by absentee ballot, and they appeared to overwhelmingly support President Bush.
There are signs this year that Obama has made some inroads with this group. Troops serving abroad have given Obama six times as much money as they have McCain, according to the Center for Responsive Politics and USA Today.
But the voting could still work in McCain's favor, meaning that a surge in absentee ballots from overseas could bode well for his chances statewide.
5) Does Keith Fimian, the GOP nominee for Congress in the 11th District, start trying to put some distance between himself and McCain?
The 11th Congressional District, which includes parts of Fairfax and Prince William counties, has been rapidly trending Democratic in recent statewide elections.
In 2004, Bush carried it by less than one percentage point. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) carried it by 13 percentage points one year later. Webb won it by 10 percentage points in 2006.
If Obama starts approaching Kaine and Webb margins, he will have a good shot at winning the state, and Fimian will have a hard time prevailing in his race against Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) without distancing himself from McCain.
6) How many times does a representative of either campaign visit your house?
The number of visits by a canvasser from the Obama or McCain campaign is a good indication of what kind of get-out-the-vote effort each side will wage in your neighborhood on Election Day.
7) What is Kaine's real approval rating?
A Washington Post poll published late last month had Kaine's approval rating at 66 percent. A Mason-Dixon Polling & Research poll published Sunday had it at 54 percent. Kaine is a big Obama supporter. If Kaine's approval rating is 66 percent, he might have some sway in turning votes for Obama. But if it's 54 percent, he probably won't.
8) How many newly registered voters are there in Brunswick County in southern Virginia?
African Americans make up 56 percent of the population in the county, but they have historically low registration and turnout rates. There are 12,000 people of voting age in the county, but only about 7,000 people voted in the 2004 election. Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, 487 residents registered to vote. If that number grows significantly when final registration numbers are released this month, it could mean that Obama's efforts to register black voters in Southside have been successful.
9) What are the final poll numbers in Hampton Roads?
Opinion polls in Hampton Roads have been very inconsistent. Some show Obama with a double-digit lead in that key swing area. Others show him with a narrow advantage. Still others show Obama and McCain tied. The polls that show Obama up in Hampton Roads also have him leading statewide. Those that have him tied in Hampton Roads show a tied race statewide.
10) Do Democratic officials in southwest Virginia get fully behind Obama?
Virginia Democratic leaders say they are having a hard time getting some party officials in that part of the state enthused about Obama. If that problem persists, it could mean that Obama could do even worse than Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) did in rural Virginia in 2004. If that occurs, McCain will probably carry the state.
LOAD-DATE: October 9, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 9, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
MoveOn Grows Up;
What Started Online in '98 Has Transformed Liberal Politicking
BYLINE: Jose Antonio Vargas; Washington Post Staff Writer
Five days after Sen. John McCain named Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, Quinn Latimer and co-worker Lyra Kilston sent an e-mail to 40 female friends and invited them to outline the reasons they were upset with his choice. It elicited such a huge response -- from friends of friends and utter strangers -- that they created a blog called Women Against Sarah Palin. In less than a month, it has become one of the largest hubs of online opposition to Palin, receiving more than 160,000 e-mails.
"I am a fiscally conservative, socially liberal Republican," writes a 65-year-old from Flagstaff, Ariz. "I am aghast at the choice the Republican ticket has made."
"As a registered Independent, I'd been holding out in deciding which way to go on this election. However, once I saw Sarah Palin being interviewed . . . it was a much easier decision," writes a 52-year-old from Los Angeles.
Along the way, Latimer got an e-mail from Eli Pariser, head of the liberal group MoveOn.org. Pariser knows about e-mail campaigns; he built MoveOn around them. And Latimer has been a member of the organization since 2000. When Pariser found out that Latimer and Kilston also live in Brooklyn, he asked them to brunch at Flatbush Farm, a local hot spot. Over eggs, oatmeal and coffee, he offered technical support from MoveOn. At one point, he even suggested that the women take time off from their jobs and work full time on the blog until Nov. 4. MoveOn, Pariser told the women, could raise the funds to pay them.
"I got to admit I was shocked by that," says Latimer, 30, an art editor.
Adds Kilston, 31, also an art editor: "We just kind of stumbled into this whole blogging thing."
The women decided to keep their jobs while maintaining the site. But now, with help from MoveOn, they'll use the e-mail list of everyone who has sent a note to the blog to send information about voter registration, phone call drives and house parties. And, to match their online activism, Latimer and Kilston plan to knock on doors for Sen. Barack Obama in Pennsylvania.
MoveOn, the enfant terrible of online politicking, is growing up, turning 10 years old last month. And it has become far more than a purveyor of vituperative e-mail blasts. During the 2006 midterm elections, for instance, the online organization -- with a full-time staff of 23, most of whom work from home -- spent $28 million advocating for Democratic candidates through its political action committee, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. In contrast, the National Rifle Association, with a staff of about 500 housed in its expansive headquarters in Fairfax, spent $11 million through its PAC.
As the battle between Obama and McCain heated up this summer, MoveOn witnessed its largest increase in membership -- adding a million new members in three months, bringing its total to 4.2 million.
Not bad for a group that started off as an online petition to stop the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Created in September 1998 by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Wes Boyd and Joan Blades, the petition asked Congress to censure Clinton and "move on" to other domestic issues.
"At first, we weren't sure what to make of MoveOn," says Paul Begala, then a senior aide in the Clinton White House. "But it became clear that the grass-roots power that MoveOn represents is what helped save us." In the years since -- through the group's virulent opposition to President Bush and the Iraq war -- Begala has regarded MoveOn as a "spinal transplant" that has reinvigorated the Democratic Party.
Perhaps that's an exaggeration. Democrats, after all, lost the White House in 2000 and 2004. It wasn't until the 2006 midterms that they controlled Congress. Still, political operatives in both parties agree that MoveOn is a singular force in Washington, unmatched in its reach and resources. For years, some Republicans have tried to create their own version of it, with little success. At the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., last month, Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, bemoaned that the right has "nothing that looks like MoveOn.org," adding that the GOP is "still in denial about what the left has been able to do."
But what exactly is MoveOn?
Although it's not a formal arm of the Democratic Party -- and the group doesn't rule out endorsing and financing third-party candidates -- MoveOn has become synonymous with the party's left wing. It's not technically a lobbying group: MoveOn doesn't employ lobbyists who've mastered the ins and outs of Capitol Hill. It's more akin to an interest group, a la Emily's List, the pro-choice organization that supports like-minded female politicians, although Pariser says somewhat grandiosely, "We are not about serving our members' individual interests -- we are primarily serving a national interest." And though officials like to say that MoveOn's membership is as sizable as the NRA's, signing up to receive the group's e-mails is not the same level of commitment as paying dues to the gun rights organization.
But in an online networking era in which pols promote their e-mail lists as a symbol of their grass-roots strength, MoveOn's list is unlike any other.
The group is led by Pariser, a tall, lanky self-described computer geek, who grew up in Lincolnville, Maine, and graduated at 19 from Simon's Rock, a small liberal arts college in western Massachusetts. "Led" is a verb that Pariser would take exception to. The way he sees it, MoveOn members are in charge. "They tell us where to go. They lead us," the 27-year-old says of his organization. "It's not about having anointed leaders. It's about leveraging technology so people can help lead themselves."
He points to regular surveys that MoveOn conducts to take the pulse of its membership. One week, members deem getting a 60-seat, filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority as a top priority. The next, eyes turn to the financial bailout plan. When MoveOn members voted to endorse Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton days before Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, it was up to Pariser to call and tell Patti Solis Doyle, who was then Clinton's campaign manager.
At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, where MoveOn hosted a packed soiree attended by the likes of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and comedian Sarah Silverman, the group seemed part of the very establishment that it criticizes -- a charge that Pariser rejects. To the McCain campaign, Obama and MoveOn are inseparable. "It's hard for Obama to claim any pretenses of bipartisan outreach when he gladly accepts the help of partisan special-interest groups like MoveOn.org," says McCain spokesman Alex Conant.
Pariser's political activism also began with an e-mail. After the Sept. 11 attacks, he sent a note to a group of friends, urging them to contact their elected officials and ask for a restrained response to the tragedy. The e-mail turned into a petition, eventually signed by more than half a million people online. Two months later, MoveOn called with a job offer.
Guided by Pariser, MoveOn began to make its mark by raising money online -- lots of it.
"When we started MoveOn, there was this standard model of how candidates are elected. Say I'm a candidate and you're a political consultant. You put me in a room, you give me a list of rich donors to call, I make calls and raise, what, $2,000 checks. Then I hand the $2,000 checks to you. You make ads with it. You take a healthy cut. You put those ads in the air -- that's how elections are won. At no point during that process does it matter to anyone other than the rich donors what you actually stand for," Pariser says.
"There's a different model now. It was the [Howard] Dean model. It's now the Obama model. You can say things that inspire people and get lots of people to contribute just a little bit. Twenty. Fifty. Maybe, who knows, even a hundred. Then instead of being accountable to a small set of rich donors, you're accountable to a large set of everyday donors."
The money has afforded MoveOn so much pull that it's hard to find a prominent Democrat who will openly criticize the group's tactics and positions. "Elected officials don't want to offend them and lose their money, right?" says a party strategist who refused to be identified. MoveOn, he adds, "is like a big-party donor, so they get treated that way. . . . A lot of people in the party who used to have more power don't like that they are losing juice to the likes of MoveOn, but they also realize they can't have the power they have without them."
Throughout this campaign cycle, MoveOn has raised nearly $33 million and expects to hit $38 million before Election Day -- money spent buying ads for and against candidates and funding get-out-the-vote efforts. All that money has led to more influence. And to more criticism when the group stumbles.
For instance, MoveOn was repudiated by Republicans and Democrats alike in September 2007 when the group ran an anti-war print ad in the New York Times that questioned the integrity of Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in Iraq. "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" read the ad. Republicans introduced resolutions condemning the ad that easily passed in both the House and Senate.
Pariser defended it at the time. But now, more than a year later, he says he "would have worded the ad differently."
"MoveOn is still evolving, still maturing, still learning what its boundaries are," says Tad Devine, a longtime Democratic consultant. "But make no mistake about it: This election might be decided by a few votes in a few states. . . . Having those hundreds of thousands of people communicating with each other through e-mails, energizing the base, can make the difference."
Beyond Hitting 'Fwd:'
On Aug. 29, just hours after the Alaska governor became the first Republican woman on a national ticket, MoveOn sent an e-mail to its members titled "Who is Sarah Palin?"
"Yesterday was John McCain's 72nd birthday. If elected, he'd be the oldest president ever inaugurated," read the e-mail. "And after months of slamming Barack Obama for 'inexperience,' here's who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency."
That became one of the most forwarded e-mails in MoveOn's history, Pariser says. (The group can count how many people click on the link in the e-mail.)
Two weeks later, on Sept. 10, MoveOn sent another e-mail, this one titled "Disgusting."
"John McCain and Sarah Palin are repeatedly deceiving, manipulating, and flat-out lying. And polls are showing that some of those lies are convincing voters," the e-mail began. "Palin says she opposed the 'Bridge to Nowhere' -- when in fact she fully supported it. McCain says Obama wants sex-ed for kindergartners -- when he voted for a bill to protect them from sexual predators."
That e-mail raised $1.2 million within 24 hours, Pariser says, the most a MoveOn e-mail has raised in a single day.
"In a way, Palin's selection was yet another wake-up call, another reminder of just how high the stakes are," says Pariser. "A lot of people have said that she's energized the evangelical base. Well, she's energized the liberal base, too. Our energy level went way, way up."
The challenge for a maturing organization is to move beyond forwarding e-mails and facilitating online donations. Can MoveOn persuade independents and Republicans to cross party lines? Is it increasing voter turnout in swing states? How can it avoid being reduced to parody? A recent headline in the Onion, for instance, read "Obama Deletes Another Unread MoveOn.org E-Mail."
Those are the questions in the minds of critics such as Clay Shirky, author of "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations." Sending an e-mail to your congressional representative is so easy that it has "become effectively meaningless," writes Shirky.
Shortly after the book came out, Pariser asked Shirky to lunch. On the day of the meeting, Shirky Twittered: "I'm going to lunch with MoveOn. If I don't Tweet again in two hours, they had me killed."
"Eli sees MoveOn as a community-organizing platform that happens to run e-mail campaigns," says Shirky, recalling the conversation. "I'm inclined to think of them as a message and fundraising organization that does some community organizing. They do some, but they can do so much more."
In the past five years, Pariser has beefed up the group's offline strategy. In addition to airing pro-Obama TV ads, the group will spend about $5 million in field efforts this cycle.
MoveOn collaborates with political scientists at Yale who are studying the impact of its canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts in 2004 and 2006. In 2004, about 70,000 members went door to door in 12 states trying to increase voter turnout. This year, Pariser estimates that about 200,000 will have gotten involved by Election Day in more than a dozen states.
MoveOn is also holding hundreds of "Call for Change" house parties, at which members call voters in swing states. On a recent Sunday night, MoveOn members made half a million phone calls in two hours. They urged supporters to volunteer for the Obama campaign -- and, in classic MoveOn style, posted photos on Flickr of themselves talking on their phones.
The Communications Hub
"I give it a 55-45, with Obama winning," Pariser says from behind his standing desk in his home office. Thomas Jefferson and Donald Rumseld, he notes, had standing desks. "I somehow picked up that trivia."
He got up at 6:20 a.m. on this late September day, went to back-to-back meetings in the afternoon ("with other online advocacy groups," he says, repeatedly declining to elaborate), then hurried home, which is a cramped two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn where he sometimes has to jiggle the toilet handle to make sure the water stops running. He lives with his wife, Lindsay, a human resources manager for a construction firm. They married in June.
"When I told people that MoveOn turned 10 today, many said, 'What? Ten years It feels like it was yesterday,' " says Pariser.
"But to me, it feels like it's been decades since 2001 when I first started getting involved. That was such a different world. In 2001, online organizing wasn't really on anyone's radar. There was no YouTube. No Facebook. No group of liberal bloggers, no Net roots. And Bush? Bush was absolutely ascendant. . . . The Democrats were in absolute disarray."
"Don't get me wrong -- a lot can change between now and November 4th. Obama can lose," Pariser says. "But here's the thing: Independent of the Obama campaign, in our own lives, through our own networks, we're doing everything we can to win this election. Back in 2001, people felt alone, like there was nothing you could do to get involved. Not anymore. People are finding each other. People are communicating. People are pumped up.
"What happens in our in-boxes doesn't just stay there."
LOAD-DATE: October 9, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post; MoveOn.org's executive director, Eli Pariser, sits in during a "Call for Change" party in Brooklyn, N.Y. Attendees encourage supporters to volunteer for the Obama campaign.
IMAGE; By Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post; MoveOn members "tell us where to go. They lead us," says Eli Pariser, the group's executive director.
IMAGE; By Kevin Wolf -- Associated Press; Last year, a MoveOn ad lambasted Gen. David Petraeus, here with Fox News's Brit Hume. The GOP condemned the attack on the U.S. commander in Iraq.
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Economic probes likely to pay off for Democrats
BYLINE: By Sean Lengell, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Congress may not be in session, but that hasn't stopped Democratic leaders from convening hearings that highlight a staggering economy that is expected to pay dividends for them in the November elections.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, held two hearings this week intended to investigate the "causes and effects" of the financial crisis on Wall Street and has scheduled three more hearings leading up to Election Day.
But Republicans are angered that mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose questionable lending practices lead to a government bailout last month, aren't even being addressed.
The two companies guarantee or own millions of mortgages issued to low-income families - a key Democratic voting bloc.
"If Congress chooses to selectively examine the causes of this crisis by excluding the role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played, then this week's hearings will not be viewed as a serious effort, but rather a political charade," said Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican.
This week, Mr. Waxman chose to hold hearings on the failures of insurance giant American International Group (AIG) and Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers.
Polls show that voters trust Democrats over Republicans to handle the nation's economy. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, appears to have benefited with strong surges in several swing-state polls and national polling.
Sixty-eight percent of voters are confident in Mr. Obama's ability to handle the financial crisis, 18 points ahead of his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, and 42 points ahead of President Bush, a Monday CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll showed.
Democrats dismiss Republican accusations that they have ignored problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying the House under their leadership already passed reforms needed to oversee the mortgage giants, and that Republicans did nothing to reform the lenders when they controlled the House from 1995 to 2007.
"Oversight is a primary responsibility of the Congress," said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat. "Chairman Waxman's exemplary work will guide members on both sides of the aisle as Congress moves forward on reform."
The party in power historically has used the oversight committee against the minority party. Between 1997 and 2002, when Republicans controlled the House, the committee issued more than 1,000 subpoenas against the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party.
And Mr. Waxman is viewed by the right as no different.
Since taking control of Congress, the White House says Democrats have started nearly 700 investigations and held more than 1,300 oversight hearings.
Rep. Brian P. Bilbray, California Republican and member of the oversight committee, has urged House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, to immediately hold hearings on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's troubles.
"While the hearings we are holding in the [oversight committee] are instructive, we lack the jurisdiction to propose a package of reforms that are so clearly needed to address the failures of the market," wrote Mr. Bilbray in a letter sent Wednesday to Mr. Frank and Mrs. Pelosi.
A report on the causes of the financial crisis by Rep. Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the oversight committee, was released this week and called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "the central cancer of the mortgage market, which has now metastasized into the current financial crisis."
Mr. Waxman has promised future hearings on Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac, although his office has said it's unlikely they will be scheduled before next month's elections.
Democrats say a Sept. 25 House Financial Services Committee hearing already addressed the problems leading up to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's demise.
LOAD-DATE: October 9, 2008
GRAPHIC: Rep. Henry A. Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has scheduled three hearings on the financial crisis in the days before the elections. [Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]
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Outspent and on defensive, McCain ratchets up attack ads
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Being dramatically outspent by Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain went almost 100 percent negative in his campaign commercials last week.
A new report by the Wisconsin Advertising Project finds Mr. McCain, Republicans' presidential nominee, is almost exclusively playing defense, trying to hold on to the states that made up President Bush's winning 2004 Electoral College coalition.
But even in those states, Mr. Obama is far outspending him, putting Virginia in play with $2.1 million spent between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4, outspending Mr. McCain in Ohio by $2.2 million to $1.7 million and in Florida by $2.2 million to Mr. McCain's $659,000. Mr. Obama also is dominating in North Carolina, outspending Mr. McCain by eight-to-one.
"Ten of the 15 states where both candidates are advertising were won by Bush in the 2004 election," said Ken Goldstein, director of the project and a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "The campaign is being played on the Republican side of the field this year."
In another sign of trouble for the McCain campaign, nearly 100 percent of its ads that week were negative, up from an average of 73 percent for the campaign as a whole. Mr. Obama, meanwhile, was running 34 percent negative ads, well below his campaign average of 61 percent.
Of the 15 states where both campaigns are advertising, Mr. McCain is only winning the spending battle in Minnesota, which went for Democrat John Kerry in 2004, and Iowa, which went for Mr. Bush.
The top markets for ads are Las Vegas and Denver, each of which saw about 2,000 ads aired during that week.
Third-party groups are playing a much less prominent role this year compared with 2004, when Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and others nearly dominated the on-air back-and-forth. The study found Vets for Freedom playing the largest role that week, spending nearly $1 million in California.
The data also shows that Mr. McCain slowed, but did not end, his campaign ads during the days he claimed to have suspended his campaign to help focus on congressional efforts to craft a Wall Street bailout package.
LOAD-DATE: October 9, 2008
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McCain casts rival as wrong man for the job;
Obama assails 'Bush policies'
BYLINE: By Joseph Curl and Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
BETHLEHEM, Pa. | Sen. John McCain went for the jugular Wednesday, casting his Democratic presidential rival as untruthful, "extreme" and unqualified the night after their debate offered no knockout punches.
Meanwhile, Sen. Barack Obama targeted his Republican foe for what he called his "George Bush policies."
With no real blood drawn in a debate watched by a record-setting 63 million, both camps set out to do what they think they need to do for the final 27 days.
While Team McCain focused on must-win battlegrounds Ohio and Pennsylvania, Mr. Obama and running mate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. split up for appeals on a wider electoral map, hitting red Indiana and swing-state Florida.
Mr. McCain told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Wednesday that he thinks Mr. Obama "lacks the experience and the knowledge, and most importantly, the judgment" to be president.
Campaigning in Indianapolis, Mr. Obama accused the Arizona senator of proposing nothing more than a third Bush term.
"In last night's debate, John McCain and I each had the chance to make the case for change," he said. "But all we heard from Senator McCain was more of the same Bush economics that led us into this mess in the first place."
The Illinois senator used his first post-debate appearance to stress the importance of resolute leadership to guide the nation through the economic crisis. Rallying 21,000 at the fairgrounds in a state that Mr. Bush won by 20 points four years ago, Mr. Obama also reprised his attack on Mr. McCain's health care plan, saying that the previous evening revealed the Republican's priorities.
"We were both asked whether we believe that health care should finally be the 'right' of every American. I believe it should, but Senator McCain didn't say that," Mr. Obama said, adding that he thinks his opponent's health care plan is "radical."
The surrogates did most of the dirty work Wednesday, with Mr. Biden saying in Tampa, Fla., that American people are looking for steady leadership, not an "angry man lurching from one position to the other."
Cindy McCain, meanwhile, blasted the man who wants to defeat her husband for voting against troop funding that didn't have a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq.
"The day that Senator Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body," she said.
Also raising eyebrows in Pennsylvania, Lehigh County Republican Party Chairman Bill Platt twice referenced Mr. Obama's middle name.
"Certainly, Barack Obama can learn a thing or two from John McCain about what it means to be a patriot," he said. "Think about [how] you'll feel on November 5 if you see the news that Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, is president of the United States."
The comment prompted the McCain camp to put out a statement denouncing it as "inappropriate rhetoric." The previous day, a Florida sheriff introducing Mr. McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, used Mr. Obama's middle name while in uniform.
During Mr. McCain's stop in the very blue steel country of east-central Pennsylvania, the Republican took aim at the political birthplace of his opponent as he told about 7,000 supporters that Mr. Obama "will try to distract you from noticing that he never answers the serious and legitimate questions he has been asked."
"I don't need lessons about telling the truth to American people. And were I ever to need any improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn't seek advice from a Chicago politician," he said at Lehigh University, drawing wild cheers.
Mr. McCain's remarks about Mr. Obama were interrupted with shouts of "socialist," "terroris " and " liar " At another time, a man in the bleachers shouted " No more ACORN," referring to a group that registers low-income voters but is being investigated for voter fraud.
Mrs. Palin dismissed Mr. Obama as just "a guy who's just tried to talk his way into the White House."
"He's not willing to drill for energy, but he's sure willing to drill for votes," she said, drawing cheers of "Drill, baby, drill" from the crowd.
Team McCain also dropped an ad asking, "Who is Barack Obama?" and labeling him with the National Journal ranking of the most liberal senator. "How extreme," an announcer says before concluding he is "not presidential."
Mr. Obama prepared a soft biographical television ad focused on his family and kept his remarks optimistic in Indianapolis.
"I'm here to tell you that there are better days ahead," he told a raucous crowd. "This isn't the time for fear or for panic, this is a time for resolve and steady leadership."
* Joseph Curl, traveling with the McCain campaign, reported from Pennsylvania; Christina Bellantoni was with Mr. Obama in Indiana.
LOAD-DATE: October 9, 2008
GRAPHIC: Thousands turn out at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis on Wednesday to support Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. His running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., was in swing-state Florida. [Photo by Mary F. Calvert/The Washington Times]
Supporters cheer for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and running mate Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa. The campaign was focused on must-win Ohio and Pennsylvania. [Photo by Associated Press]
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 8, 2008 Wednesday
Final Edition
Decaf or regular? Obama or McCain?
BYLINE: Louis Llovio; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. B-9
Sharon Clarke wasn't about to wait until Nov. 4 to cast her ballot. She didn't need any more television commercials or last night's debate to decide.
The Richmond woman knew her pick for president and was ready to vote.
Last week, Clarke began voting for Sen. Barack Obama - early and often. Her polling place? 7-Eleven.
Yesterday afternoon she voted for him twice at the store on Midlothian Turnpike near Twin Ridge Lane.
So far, she has cast 20 votes for the Democratic nominee.
"He's my guy and I want to show people that this is the person that needs to be in the White House," she said.
For the third straight presidential election, 7-Eleven Inc. is holding a coffee-cup poll. Coffee drinkers can cast votes for their nominee between Oct. 1 and Election Day.
Supporters of Republican Sen. John McCain can choose red cups and those leaning toward Obama can select the blue one. Undecided? Pick a plain cup.
While unscientific, 7-Eleven coffee buyers came close in the past two elections to telegraphing the results.
In 2004, coffee drinkers supported President Bush 51 percent to 49 percent over Sen. John Kerry. In actual voting, Bush won 50.7 percent to Kerry's 48.3 percent.
And in 2000, the candidates could have saved themselves a trip to the Supreme Court and counted coffee cups instead. Despite losing the popular vote, Bush won 51.2 percent of coffee drinkers while Democrat Al Gore picked up 48.9 percent.
Larry J. Sabato, a professor of political science at the University of Virginia, said you shouldn't read too much into 7-Eleven's findings.
"I drink 7-Eleven coffee, too, and it's not bad. But with all due respect to 7-Eleven, any correlation between the sales of these coffee cups and the national polls is mainly coincidental," he said.
Whether or not they are a good indicator, the coffee cups could be bad news for McCain in the battleground state of Virginia. The chain, which tracks the coffee-cup sales and posts results online, has Obama up 59 percent to 41 percent.
Nationally, the figures are Obama at 58 percent and McCain at 42 percent.
In the metro Richmond area, Obama leads 61 percent to 39 percent.
LOAD-DATE: October 11, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 8, 2008 Wednesday
Regional Edition
Obama Flexing Financial Muscle With TV Spending
BYLINE: Chris Cillizza; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A05
Sen. Barack Obama is outspending Sen. John McCain by nearly 3 to 1 on television advertising in the final weeks of the presidential campaign, a financial edge that is almost certainly contributing to the Democrat's momentum in key battleground states.
From Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, Obama spent more than $20 million on TV ads in 17 states, including more than $3 million in Pennsylvania alone and more than $2 million each in Florida, Michigan and Ohio. In the same time frame, McCain spent a total of $7.2 million in 15 states. Even including Republican National Committee's $5.3 million in independent expenditures in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, Obama outspent the combined GOP forces by roughly $8 million in the past week alone.
Obama has used the money to hammer McCain as both a clone of President Bush and out of touch on key domestic issues, most notably the economy. The spending edge has coincided with the collapse of the financial industry and a refocusing by voters on the economy to turn the election from a nail-biter to one in which the Democrat has moved into a discernible lead.
Obama's fundraising machine has continued to churn in recent months, while McCain ceded the right to raise any more money when he accepted $84 million in public funds for his campaign. Obama brought in $67.5 million in August alone and ended that month with more than $77 million on hand. (Reports for September are not due at the Federal Election Commission until Oct. 20.)
Obama's ad-spending strategy has been based on the idea of straining the GOP's cash reserves by forcing McCain to devote resources to nontraditional battlegrounds such as Indiana, North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia.
That decision paid off for Obama last week when McCain pulled his costly TV commercials in Michigan. In the past week, Obama spent nearly $2.2 million on ads in Michigan, compared with $642,000 for McCain and just over $1 million from the RNC.
A detailed look at ad spending over the past week shows clearly how the Democrat is using his financial advantage. Obama outspent McCain in 13 of the 15 states where both candidates were on television, in some cases drastically.
In Florida, where recent polling suggests Obama has surged, the senator from Illinois spent more than $2.8 million on TV ads in the past week while the senator from Arizona spent $623,000.
In North Carolina, Obama dropped approximately $1.5 million on commercials last week while McCain spent only $137,000. Some polls now show the race in that state, which Bush won by 12 points in 2004, as a dead heat.
Even in Pennsylvania, a state where McCain is now focusing much of his time and energy, Obama's spending advantage is massive. Obama spent a little more than $3 million on ads in the Keystone State last month, compared with McCain's $1.2 million and an additional $807,000 from the RNC.
In Virginia, which has gone Republican in every presidential election since 1964, Obama's pronounced spending advantage is also being felt. Obama spent $1.6 million on ads in the commonwealth last week while the combined forces of McCain and the RNC spent $909,000.
Only in Minnesota and Iowa did McCain have a spending edge on television over Obama in the past week.
In Minnesota, the McCain campaign spent $377,000 on TV ads, far more than the $196,000 Obama spent in the same period. Republicans saw a significant uptick in their poll numbers in Minnesota after the party's convention in St. Paul in August, although most recent surveys show Obama reclaiming a statistically significant lead. History is also against McCain in the state, as no Republican presidential nominee has carried Minnesota since 1972.
In Iowa, McCain spent $297,000 on television, compared with $224,000 for Obama. That's rough parity in a state where polling shows Obama with a comfortable lead. McCain has spent considerable time, attention and money in Iowa, however, a strategy that has baffled many in the Obama campaign. Iowa went for then-Vice President Al Gore by 4,000 votes in 2000, but Bush carried the state by 10,000 votes four years later.
Spending by the RNC's independent expenditure arm has kept McCain within shouting distance of Obama in several crucial states, including Ohio and Wisconsin.
In Ohio, Obama spent $2.86 million on television last week while the combination of McCain ($1.1 million) and the RNC ($1.66 million) gave Democrats just a $100,000 edge. Democrats had a spending edge about twice that big in Wisconsin, where Obama spent $1.24 million, compared with $1.03 million for McCain and the RNC.
LOAD-DATE: October 8, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 8, 2008 Wednesday
Met 2 Edition
Both Candidates Misleading TV Viewers With Attacks
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
THE ADS
From the Obama-Biden campaign, "The Subject":
He's out of ideas. Out of touch. And running out of time. But with no plan to lift our economy up, John McCain wants to tear Barack Obama down. With smears that have been proven false. Why? McCain's own campaign admits that if the election is about the economy, he's going to lose. But as Americans lose their jobs, homes and savings, it's time for a president who'll change the economy. Not change the subject.
From the McCain-Palin campaign, "Hypo":
Announcer: Who is Barack Obama?
KMOV-TV anchor: Obama's presidential campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading television ad.
Announcer: How hypocritical. Obama's Social Security attack was called "a falsehood." His health-care attack . . . "misleading." Obama's stem cell attack . . . "not true." Barack Obama. He promised better. He lied.
ANALYSIS
Both presidential candidates are using news organizations and fact-checking groups to accuse each other of airing false advertising, though only McCain goes so far as to call his opponent a liar.
Both ignore accusations that their own ad campaigns and public statements have included misrepresentations and falsehoods, pretending that only their opponent is hurling bogus allegations. McCain's commercials have been accused of falsehoods more frequently, although Obama has begun to catch up in the last two weeks.
Obama's ad -- which includes the now-obligatory shot of McCain with President Bush and the accusation that he's "out of touch" -- is on solid ground in accusing the senator from Arizona of trying to change the subject from the economy. McCain's own aides have been quoted as saying he needs to turn the page from the financial crisis and concentrate on attacking Obama's character. It is not accurate, however, to say that McCain has "no plan" for the economy, as he has made a series of proposals involving tax cuts, health coverage and energy.
The "smears" line involves McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, who said last weekend that Obama has been "palling around with terrorists." As the ad notes, CNN called that "false," and the Associated Press said it was "a deliberate attempt to smear Obama." The reference is to onetime Weather Underground bomber William Ayers, a slight acquaintance of the senator from Illinois who has served on two boards with him. A CNN correspondent said "there's no indication that Ayers and Obama are palling around or they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years."
By saying McCain is "running out of time" and trying to "change the subject," the ad suggests that the Republican's attacks are born of political desperation and not to be trusted.
McCain's ad is based on the accurate notion that Obama long talked about running a campaign that moved beyond petty politics, thereby rendering him vulnerable to the accusation that he is practicing old-style attack politics.
The charge that Obama is being hypocritical rests on a St. Louis television report that the Democrat had asked Missouri law enforcement officials to target campaigns that run misleading ads. But the correspondent for KMOV-TV was quoted by a local newspaper as saying that Republicans had twisted his story out of context, and that he had meant only that Obama's allies would call attention to questionable ads.
As cited in the ad, Factcheck.org called one Obama commercial "a falsehood sure to frighten seniors who rely on their Social Security checks." In that ad, Obama described the "Bush-McCain privatization plan" as "cutting Social Security benefits in half." McCain has made no such proposal; the Obama ad is based on the president's failed 2005 plan. Factcheck said another Obama spot was "misleading" in accusing McCain, based on an article he wrote, of wanting to "do the same to our health care" that "Wall Street deregulation" has done to the banking industry.
ABC's Jake Tapper, as the spot notes, criticized an Obama radio ad as untrue in claiming that McCain is against stem cell research without noting that McCain had dropped his earlier opposition. But Tapper also examined a McCain radio ad on the subject and concluded: "Both candidates mislead voters by glossing over or ignoring inconvenient facts." The selective nature of both these ads underscores that judgment.
Video of these ads can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
LOAD-DATE: October 8, 2008
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October 8, 2008 Wednesday
Debate-viewing party elicits conversation of cheers, jeers
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
INDIANAPOLIS | Sen. Barack Obama supporters gathered around the television for Tuesday's debate warned against the presidential candidates going negative.
"People don't want to see that, they want to see real answers," said Cindy Jackson, 59.
She was one of a few dozen people gathered at Carol Myers' home here to witness the second debate between Mr. Obama and Republican nominee Sen. John McCain.
The Democratic nominee acknowledged the concern - amid a week where the race has gotten especially nasty - in one of his opening answers.
"You're not interested in hearing politicians pointing fingers," Mr. Obama said.
"Thank you," several debate watchers here said in unison.
But the candidates didn't really keep to that idea, and several voters at the party said they wished the debate would have stayed more positive.
They also complained the town-hall-style event did not include questions on education, crime, drug policy or gas prices.
Dennis Smith, a Republican financial adviser from Bloomington, who came to the gathering undecided, left the watch party leaning toward Mr. Obama.
"I liked his response about what we need to sacrifice," he said. "The most important thing in the next president's term will be the ability to bring the country together. I think Obama is more likely to do that."
The group - brought together via BarackObama.com - was weighted with supporters of the Democratic nominee. But a handful of Republicans attended, with all but one saying they weren't going to be persuaded.
Ms. Myers, a former high school principal, said her brother and brother-in-law are Republicans, along with her mom, who has never voted for a Democrat. She didn't invite them, however, to change minds.
"I just want to have a conversation. I don't want to convince anyone," she said.
The Obama supporters at several points in the night felt like Mr. McCain was dodging questions, and groaned each time the Republican used his signature line: "My friends."
"I hate it when he says that," one debate watcher complained as others laughed.
"I'm not his friend," Obama supporter Mary Jo Rattermann said from the back of the room.
Another woman chimed in: "This guy is not my friend, how many houses does he have? Seven, eight, nine, ten? He doesn't know how many he has."
There was predictably partisan head-shaking and mocking, mostly directed toward Mr. McCain.
The multiracial group spanned several generations, but each person was similarly transfixed on the television.
When Mr. McCain needled his rival by saying, "I'll answer the question," Ms. Myers shouted, "Unlike Sarah," a reference to McCain running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin who last week avoided answering several questions.
Another woman piped up, "Did he just wink?"
Several started laughing at the joke about Mrs. Palin winking during her debate, but one of the Republicans in the room grew annoyed when the Obama supporters mocking Mr. McCain grew louder.
"I'm not able to hear," he told the host, frowning.
The group liked Mr. Brokaw asking who would be considered for Treasury secretary under either man's administration.
"Good question!" two people shouted.
When Mr. Obama railed on AIG executives who took a retreat after getting money from the government, saying they "should be fired," the room applauded.
Mr. Obama will hold a rally here Wednesday. Polls show Mr. McCain with a lead in the Hoosier State, but the race has tightened as Team Obama treated it like a true battleground with multiple offices, candidate visits and television commercials.
LOAD-DATE: October 8, 2008
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October 8, 2008 Wednesday
McCain pledges homeowner help;
Seeks to buy up bad mortgages; Obama blames Bush for crisis
BYLINE: By Joseph Curl, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
DATELINE: NASHVILLE, Tenn.
Sen. John McCain unveiled a sweeping $300 billion proposal to prevent Americans from losing their homes as both presidential candidates sought Tuesday night in their second debate to convince undecided voters that they were best-equipped to address the economic crisis that has gripped the globe.
Just minutes into a spirited town-hall forum in which the two nominees clashed early and often, the Republican candidate said that as president, he would require the federal government to delve into the market to buy up bad mortgage debts and allow homeowners to refinance their mortgages.
"Is it expensive? Yes. But we all know, my friends, until we stabilize home values in America, we're never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy," Mr. McCain said at Belmont University.
The rocky economy has boosted Democrat Sen. Barack Obama in the polls, but last night, he offered no new proposals. Instead, he said the current economic crisis was the "final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years" that President Bush pursued and were "supported by Senator McCain."
"We are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and I know a lot of you are worried about your jobs, your pensions, your retirement accounts, your ability to send your children and grandchildren to college," Mr. Obama said.
Mr. McCain pushed back, distancing himself from the Bush administration, which has borne the brunt of the blame for the Wall Street crisis. "It's my proposal. It's not Senator Obama's proposal; it's not President Bush's proposal," he said firmly with a scowl, squinting in the lights.
From that first question in the debate moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw, Mr. McCain was eager for a fight, jumping off his stool to prowl the stage and handle the questions, which came from some of the 80 "undecided" voters selected by polling group Gallup. Mr. Obama soon followed his lead.
The two nominees, who have been engaged in increasingly personal attacks this week as the campaign has begun to trend toward the Democrat, also clashed on foreign policy.
In one pointed exchange, Mr. Obama bluntly challenged Mr. McCain's steadiness. "This is a guy who sang bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, who called for the annihilation of North Korea - that I don't think is an example of speaking softly."
Mr. McCain targeted his rival's lack of experience, saying Mr. Obama foolishly threatening to invade Pakistan and said, "I'm not going to telegraph my punches, which is what Senator Obama did." He also said Mr. Obama has declared he would speak directly with leaders of rogue nations, like Iran, dismissing that stance as naive.
The Democrat struck back, but Mr. McCain got the last word.
"Now, Senator McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I'm green behind the ears and I'm just spouting off, and he's somber and responsible," Mr. Obama said, pausing.
"Thank you very much," Mr. McCain said, drawing a laugh from the crowd. He explained that when he sang the words "bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys "Barbara Ann,"
"I was joking with a veteran - I hate to even go into this. I was joking with an old veteran friend, who joked with me, about Iran."
Mr. McCain also said his rival "was wrong about Iraq and the surge. He was wrong about Russia when they committed aggression against Georgia. And in his short career, he does not understand our national security challenges. We don't have time for on-the-job training."
Mr. Obama countered with sarcasm, saying he didn't understand some things - like how the United States could face the challenge it does in Afghanistan after spending years and hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq.
In one of his most dismissive comments, Mr. McCain referred to Mr. Obama as "that one" as he criticized the Democratic candidate for voting for a Bush administration energy proposal loaded with special-interest spending.
"You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one," he said as he pointed at Mr. Obama. "You know who voted against it? Me."
Before the debate began, Mr. Obama hoped to lock down his lead in the polls while Mr. McCain sought to turn around his fortunes. The economic turmoil - the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 500 more points on Tuesday - has paid off for the Democrat, who a majority of Americans say is more capable of handling the crisis, polls show.
According to CNN's latest average of polls, Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain by six percentage points, 49 percent to 43 percent. RealClearPolitics.com put the Illinois Democrat's lead at 5.5 percent.
With just four weeks left in the campaign, both sides have gone heavily negative. Mr. McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, accused Mr. Obama of "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." The charge refers Mr. Obama's ties to 1960s-era radical William Ayers and to the Democrat's former pastor, the incendiary Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
Mr. McCain also accused Mr. Obama of lying about the Republican senator's record, and asked, "Who is the real Senator Obama?"
In response, the Democrat released an ad quoting editorials that called Mr. McCain "erratic" and "out of touch," and charged that his latest ad was an "angry tirade."
The Obama campaign also released an online documentary that criticizes Mr. McCain over his involvement in the "Keating Five" scandal of the 1980s. The Arizona Republican was cleared of all charges, although he was found to have used poor judgment in his dealings with convicted banker Charles H. Keating Jr.
On the economy, Mr. McCain said Mr. Obama bears some of the blame for the current financial crisis, connecting him with mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose meltdown tripped off the Wall Street slide.
"They're the ones that with the encouragement of Senator Obama and his cronies and his friends, in Washington, that went out and made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back," Mr. McCain said as Mr. Obama perched on a stool, smiling.
The Republican said that he took action two years ago to try to rein in the two mortgages companies, but that his rival did nothing.
"There were some of us - there were some of us that stood up against it; there was others who took a hike," he said.
Mr. Obama said Mr. McCain's efforts as a senator to deregulate financial institutions was to blame for the crisis.
"A year ago, I went to Wall Street and said we've got to reregulate. And nothing happened. And Senator McCain during that period said that we should keep on deregulating because that's how the free enterprise system works," he said.
The Democrat again promised middle-class tax cuts to 95 percent of Americans, public-works projects to create jobs and increased regulation to end Wall Street's excesses. But Mr. McCain said Mr. Obama voted 94 times to raise taxes or allow tax hikes and urged voters to look at his record as an anti-tax senator who also wants to cut spending.
Mr. McCain came back with his own record.
"Let's not raise taxes on anybody," the Republican said, drawing a contrast with Mr. Obama, who plans to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
The debate was the second of three between the two major party rivals, and the only one to feature a format in which voters posed questions to the candidates.
"It's good to be with you at a town-hall meeting," Mr. McCain jabbed at his rival, who spurned the Republican's calls for numerous such joint appearances across the fall campaign.
The candidates' third and last debate will be Oct. 15 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.
The first presidential debate focused on the economy, even though it was supposed to be about foreign policy. That debate, which took place Sept. 26, came as talks over the government's bailout proposal imploded.
The political pundits ruled the first debate a draw, and there was no single sound bite or decisive moment that stood out. But since then, Mr. Obama has been rising in the polls, and some analysts say that is because he proved that he could hold his own in a debate with a 25-year Senate veteran, which has eased doubts that he is unqualified.
The third debate, like the first, will be divided into about eight 10-minute segments. The moderator will introduce each segment with a question and gives each candidate two minutes to respond. Then there is a five-minute discussion period, with direct exchanges between the candidates.
LOAD-DATE: October 8, 2008
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October 8, 2008 Wednesday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE POLITICS; A06
In the spotlight
"The polls now all indicate an Obama win on Nov. 4; some even suggest a landslide. But there's a strong chance the race will tighten back up this month," Dick Morris and Eileen McGann write in the New York Post.
"Anger over the Wall Street mess has been pushing voters to Barack Obama in droves. And John McCain's effort to get involved in the solution only hurt him," the writers said.
"By suspending his campaign and heading to Washington, McCain made himself a central actor in the unpopular bailout, and thus a target of populist outrage. It also hurt his effort to show how he far he is from President Bush - there he was, shoulder to shoulder with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Bush and Wall Street.
"But October may see the end of Obama's surge: He's peaking too soon.
"Once the Democrat is seen as the clear leader and likely winner, the spotlight will inevitably shift to him. And he may not benefit from the increased attention.
"Obama didn't do well when he last emerged on top, in later Democratic primaries. The more it appeared that Hillary Clinton would lose, the more voter concerns over Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright cost him state after state in the later primaries.
"Obama still beat Clinton because he'd already amassed a sufficient delegate lead earlier on. That dynamic doesn't apply in the general election.
"The Democrat gained by standing back during the rescue-bill drama. But now voters (with a strong push from the McCain campaign) will be giving him a closer look - and some won't like what they see."
Media herd
"Barack Obama received a valuable campaign contribution from the New York Times on Saturday: a front-page piece reviewing Obama's lengthy association with the '60s and '70s Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers," the Media Research Center reports at www.mrc.org.
"The Times' key sentence asserted: 'The two men do not appear to have been close.'
"The Times' stamp of disapproval was all the rest of the media needed to reject the idea that Obama's dealings with Ayers should matter to voters, as Sarah Palin dared to suggest over the weekend. ABC's David Wright on Sunday called Palin's attack on Obama 'incendiary,' while CBS's Bob Schieffer (moderator of the final presidential debate on October 15) called it a 'down and dirty' move, adding that Palin 'took after Barack Obama in a style reminiscent of Spiro Agnew.'
"In an item dated Sunday morning, AP writer Douglass Daniel slammed Palin's attack as 'unsubstantiated' and carrying 'a racially-tinged subtext. ... Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee " palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?' Bill Ayers is white.
"Also on Sunday morning, CNN 'truth squadder' Josh Levs rejected Palin's charge as 'false,' apparently because she used the wrong verb tense: 'There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now " palling around " ... Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity' So while Ayers' group bombed the Pentagon and Capitol, it's time to forgive and forget?"
Ayers vs. Keating
"So the Obama campaign is now playing the Keating card - launching a [Web site], keatingeconomics.com, that features a 13-minute documentary on McCain's involvement in the Keating Five scandal. I'm not a fan of this move," the New Republic's Jason Zengerle writes in a blog posted Monday at tnr.com.
"I don't doubt that the Keating Five is a legitimate issue for Obama to raise. First, as Ben Smith notes, 'the story of McCain and Keating is not guilt by association; it's guilt by guilt.' Second, anything that highlights McCain's zeal for deregulation of the financial sector - as his going to bat for Keating's S&L certainly did - is obviously relevant in the current political climate. But I question the timing of Obama playing the Keating card, coming immediately on the heels of the McCain campaign's decision to make Bill Ayers an issue," Mr. Zengerle said.
"On a day when the Dow has dipped below 10,000 for the first time in four years, Obama has a real opportunity to take McCain's Ayers gambit and use it as yet another example of McCain being out of touch. Obama could cut one of those one- or two-minute ads that show him speaking directly to the camera and saying something like, 'On a day when we appear to be teetering on the brink of a global recession and people are worried about their economic futures, John McCain wants to " turn the page" and talk about the 40-year-old actions of a man whom I barely know and whose actions I've deemed despicable ...' and then pivot to a discussion of his economic plan Such an ad would [reinforce] the thing that's most distinguished Obama from McCain during the financial crisis: Obama's sober, serious side. Why not continue to play that up?
"Instead, the Obama campaign decided to bring up Keating - which, while a legitimate issue, runs the risk of being interpreted as a case of tit for tat: I'll see your Ayers and raise you a Keating. That's the way it was cast on NPR this morning (after a mention of the day's top story about our impending financial ruin). And at a time when voters are freaking out about losing their life savings, the candidate who makes a point of not playing politics - or at least of seeming not to play politics - is the candidate who's making the smart political play. Obama's made a lot of smart political plays up to this point; I'm surprised he didn't make this one."
In the comics
The life stories of presidential candidates Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama hit comic book stands Wednesday - and the company behind the illustrated bios hopes plenty of adults will buy them.
IDW Publishing, a San Diego-based company, said it produced the comic book biographies of the two candidates to capitalize on the election. The two biographies will be sold separately in comics stores, and together in a bound edition at bookstores.
In his comic, Mr. McCain, the Republican nominee for president, is shown being struck by captors in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, is portrayed as a community organizer sitting around a kitchen table listening to Chicago residents.
"It really is a kick to do something that is something so out of the norm for comic books," Scott Dunbier, special projects editor with IDW, told Reuters news agency.
Mr. Dunbier said he came to appreciate the two candidates more after fact-checking their biographies.
"Both men have very compelling stories," he said.
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes .com.
LOAD-DATE: October 8, 2008
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 7, 2008 Tuesday
Final Edition
McCain, Palin to appear in Va. next week;
Events in Va. Beach, Richmond; McCain calls Obama an unknown
BYLINE: JEFF E. SCHAPIRO; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-4
Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin return next week to Virginia, fighting to hold a state that - polls suggest - could tip Democratic for president for the first time since 1964.
The Republican running mates will appear in Virginia Beach Monday morning before Palin, the vice presidential nominee, comes to Richmond for an afternoon rally.
"It is going to be a tough race in Virginia, but we are focused on winning Virginia, so that John McCain and Sarah Palin can shake things up in Washington," said Attorney General Bob McDonnell, the presumed GOP nominee for governor in 2009.
It will be the ticket's second appearance in the state, where the latest Times-Dispatch poll shows McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, in a statistical tie. McCain and Palin visited Fairfax City on Sept. 10.
McCain, the presidential nominee, and Palin will headline a rally at 10 a.m. Monday at the Virginia Beach Convention Center. Palin will appear at a 1 p.m. rally at Richmond's Arthur Ashe Center.
Tickets for both events are available through McCain's Virginia Web site, Virginia.JohnMcCain.com. They also can be obtained, starting today, at McCain-Palin offices across the state.
On the campaign trail in Albuquerque, N.M., yesterday, McCain called Obama a liar and said the campaign boils down to one basic question: Who is Obama really?
He criticized Obama's ties to Chicago, his legislative record and even his pair of best-selling memoirs.
McCain, speaking about the financial crisis, took offense at Obama's accusation that McCain opposed regulation that would have prevented the credit crunch.
Later, he added: "There are essential things that we don't know about Sen. Obama or the record he brings to this campaign."
McCain and his advisers spent the weekend working to sharpen a line of attack against Obama.
Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin expanded her attack on Obama's character yesterday to include his relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. McCain had signaled he did not want that to be a part of his campaign after Obama denounced Wright's sermons.
Wright had appeared to be off limits for the McCain campaign ever since McCain himself condemned the North Carolina Republican Party in April for an ad that called Obama "too extreme" because Wright was his pastor.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 10, 2008
NOTES: Campaign 2008; BREAKING NEWS 10/06/2008 2:16 PM on inRich.com
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Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
McCain, Palin to appear in Va. next week
BYLINE: Jeff E. Schapiro, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Oct. 7--Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin return next week to Virginia, fighting to hold a state that -- polls suggest -- could tip Democratic for president for the first time since 1964.
The Republican running mates will appear in Virginia Beach Monday morning before Palin, the vice presidential nominee, comes to Richmond for an afternoon rally.
"It is going to be a tough race in Virginia, but we are focused on winning Virginia, so that John McCain and Sarah Palin can shake things up in Washington," said Attorney General Bob McDonnell, the presumed GOP nominee for governor in 2009.
It will be the ticket's second appearance in the state, where the latest Times-Dispatch poll shows McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, in a statistical tie. McCain and Palin visited Fairfax City on Sept. 10.
McCain, the presidential nominee, and Palin will headline a rally at 10 a.m. Monday at the Virginia Beach Convention Center. Palin will appear at a 1 p.m. rally at Richmond's Arthur Ashe Center.
Tickets for both events are available through McCain's Virginia Web site, Virginia.JohnMcCain.com. They also can be obtained, starting today, at McCain-Palin offices across the state.
On the campaign trail in Albuquerque, N.M., yesterday, McCain called Obama a liar and said the campaign boils down to one basic question: Who is Obama really?
He criticized Obama's ties to Chicago, his legislative record and even his pair of best-selling memoirs.
McCain, speaking about the financial crisis, took offense at Obama's accusation that McCain opposed regulation that would have prevented the credit crunch.
Later, he added: "There are essential things that we don't know about Sen. Obama or the record he brings to this campaign."
McCain and his advisers spent the weekend working to sharpen a line of attack against Obama.
Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin expanded her attack on Obama's character yesterday to include his relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. McCain had signaled he did not want that to be a part of his campaign after Obama denounced Wright's sermons.
Wright had appeared to be off limits for the McCain campaign ever since McCain himself condemned the North Carolina Republican Party in April for an ad that called Obama "too extreme" because Wright was his pastor.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 7, 2008 Tuesday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
hard attacks election 2008
From wire reports
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
Who does America want at the helm in a time of crisis, an erratic gambler or a dangerous radical? o That's the stark choice being portrayed by Barack Obama and John McCain as they prepare for their second debate tonight - each is looking to frame the other in the darkest possible terms heading into the final month of the campaign.
Obama, having opened a lead and looking to seal the deal, heads into the debate portraying himself as the steady hand of calm leadership and slamming McCain as a knee-jerk hothead ill- suited to handle the nation's crises, economic or otherwise.
McCain, looking to stop Obama's momentum, is hammering his rival's ties to controversial characters in Chicago as signs of his radical and unpredictable ways.
As both take aim, their shots are underscored by the continuing turmoil in the markets and fresh warnings Monday that the economy is in for tough times ahead despite Friday's approval of a $700 billion bank bailout.
Indeed, the economy is likely to dominate the questions posed to the two men tonight. The 90-minute debate will feature questions from a live audience in a town hall format moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw.
"In difficult times, people want a sense of calm reassurance," said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Iowa. "Obama, as he did in the first debate, is going to try to come across as calm and reassuring. He's going to hit the economy hard and emphasize that McCain is erratic."
In the days and hours leading up to the debate, Obama was striving to portray McCain as a reckless leader who would make impulsive, poorly reasoned moves with the country's future.
"Erratic in a crisis," a new Obama ad says of McCain. "Out of touch."
"Sen. McCain and his operatives are gambling that he can distract you," Obama said Sunday, using the word "gambling" as a red flag to draw some connection between McCain's fondness for casino betting and his alleged style of leadership.
Obama's campaign also launched a new attack Monday on McCain's role in the Keating Five savings-and-loan scandal, named for the head of a failed S&L and the five lawmakers accused of improperly helping him.
A Senate Ethics Committee inquiry ultimately cleared McCain while rebuking him for "poor judgment."
On Monday, Obama said McCain is trying to shift attention from the troubled economy because his advisers fear it could cause him to lose the election.
"I've got news for the McCain campaign: The American people are losing right now," he said. "They're losing their jobs. They're losing their health care. They're losing their homes. They're losing their savings. I cannot imagine anything more important to talk about."
McCain goes into the debate trailing in national polls and in surveys of many battleground states.
"McCain has to try to convince voters Obama is a risky choice," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Polling Institute at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.
While Obama accuses McCain of being reckless, McCain is slamming Obama on taxes, and his running mate Sarah Palin is raising issues of character.
On Monday, McCain called Obama a liar as he leveled his harshest criticism yet.
Speaking about the financial crisis, McCain took offense at Obama's accusation that McCain opposed regulation that would have prevented the credit crunch. "I guess he believes if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed," McCain said.
The Arizona senator, a veteran of more than two decades in Congress, told his audience that while he is a known quantity, the same cannot be said about Obama, who is midway through his first term as a senator from Illinois.
"You need to know who you're putting in the White House - where the candidate came from and what he or she believes," McCain said. "And you need to know now, before it is time to choose."
Palin spent the days leading up to the debate ripping Obama for his past ties to 1960s radical William Ayers, who has refused to apologize for his role in a group that bombed U.S. buildings to protest the Vietnam War. He's now a Chicago college professor.
On Monday, Palin embarked on a discussion of Obama's relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright .
In an interview with conservative New York Times columnist William Kristol published Monday, the Alaska governor said there should be more discussion about Wright, Obama's pastor of 20 years at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. The Democratic candidate denounced Wright and severed ties with the church last spring after videotapes surfaced showing Wright making anti-American and anti-Semitic comments from the pulpit.
"I don't know why that association isn't discussed more," Palin said, "because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country."
In April, McCain condemned the North Carolina Republican Party for an ad that called Obama "too extreme" because Wright was his pastor.
This story was compiled from reports by McClatchy News Service and The Associated Press.
tonight's debate
The 90-minute debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., will be televised nationally starting at 9 p.m.
LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 7, 2008 Tuesday
Regional Edition
Dangerous Territory;
As the campaigns plunge into the mud, how should voters evaluate their claims?
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A20
THE TONE is ominous, the shadings dark. "Who is Barack Obama?" asks the latest campaign advertisement from Sen. John McCain. "He says our troops in Afghanistan are 'just air-raiding villages and killing civilians' . . . How dishonorable. . . . How dangerous. . . . Too risky for America."
Here's what Mr. Obama actually said about Afghanistan in August 2007: "We've got to get the job done there, and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there." The gap between that reality and the McCain ad -- not quite a lie, yet not a fair representation, either -- is where the campaigns seem to be heading with four weeks to go until the election. Gov. Sarah Palin accused Mr. Obama "palling around with terrorists." The Obama campaign retaliated with a 13-minute video about Mr. McCain's involvement in the two-decade-old Keating Five scandal, emphasizing words and phrases such as "betrayal" and "destroying trust." Issues are out, character assassination is in.
Character is legitimate campaign fodder -- up to a point. Is there something to be learned from Mr. Obama's association in the 1990s with William Ayers, the unrepentant domestic terrorist to whom Ms. Palin referred? It's certainly not that Mr. Obama hates America or shares responsibility for the bombing Mr. Ayers helped carry out. By the time Mr. Obama came on the Chicago scene, Mr. Ayers was a member of the liberal political establishment that Mr. Obama sought to join. Maybe someone of stronger character would have decided not to go with that flow -- not to join a foundation board with Mr. Ayers or allow him to host a political coffee. It's an arguable point, maybe a small brushstroke in a full portrait of Mr. Obama, in any case hardly disqualifying to his candidacy.
Similarly, the Keating savings-and-loan scandal, in which Mr. McCain was accused of poor judgment but no crime, is a legitimate topic. The Obama campaign is off-base in seeking to tie it to today's financial meltdown on the basis that Mr. McCain was and remains an ideological foe of regulation. As we've written here before, his record is far more complex, including advocacy of stricter accounting standards after the Enron scandal and stronger regulation of housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But Mr. McCain himself has talked about the shame he felt in his Keating Five involvement and how it impelled him to a greater attention to ethics in his subsequent career. It's a brushstroke, or two, in his political portrait.
But the relevance of character can't excuse an anything-goes assault. Mr. Obama's use of the word "just" in his statement on Afghanistan was inartful. But Mr. McCain knows perfectly well that Mr. Obama doesn't believe U.S. troops are killing only civilians. He also knows perfectly well that the problem Mr. Obama described -- the alienation of Afghan civilians by military tactics that lead to too many civilian deaths -- is real and demands a rethinking of strategy. What's dishonorable in this case is the McCain ad, not the Obama statement.
And while character counts, issues do, too, or should. In the debate tonight, we'd like to hear each candidate explain how he would unfreeze global credit markets if he were in charge now and how he will restructure financial regulation if he is in charge four months from now. We'd like to hear the candidates debate their very different cap-and-trade proposals for controlling global warming, their ideas for controlling health costs, their thoughts on immigration and homeland security, and what they would do with captured terrorism suspects once the Guantanamo Bay prison has been closed. We'd like to hear, in other words, about not just what each did 10 and 20 years ago but what he would do as president.
LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2008
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The Washington Post
October 7, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
McCain Spot Distorts Obama Comment About Military
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
THE AD
Narrator: Who is Barack Obama? He says our troops in Afghanistan are -- (Barack Obama:) ". . . just air-raiding villages and killing civilians." (Narrator:) How dishonorable. Congressional liberals voted repeatedly to cut off funding to our active troops. Increasing the risk on their lives. How dangerous. Obama and congressional liberals. Too risky for America.
ANALYSIS
This John McCain ad blatantly distorts Barack Obama's words in an effort to paint him as callous about the role of the U.S. military. The commercial truncates a comment that Obama made to a voter in New Hampshire in August 2007. According to the Associated Press, the senator from Illinois brought up Afghanistan when asked whether he would withdraw troops from Iraq to fight terrorism elsewhere: "We've got to get the job done there, and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there." In short, Obama was saying he wanted to avoid just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, not that this was all that American troops were doing. His meaning was the opposite of what is portrayed in this spot. Civilian casualties have been rising in Afghanistan this year, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last month apologized for U.S. airstrikes that have killed civilians.
Obama voted against Republican legislation to continue an open-ended commitment in Iraq after President Bush vetoed a Democratic bill to link funding to a timetable for withdrawal. He did not intend to cut off funding for American troops any more than McCain did in urging Bush to reject the Democratic measure. The commercial represents an effort to turn the campaign dialogue from the economy to foreign policy, a stronger issue for the senator from Arizona. By having the female narrator begin with the words "Who is Barack Obama?" the ad attempts to reinforce doubts about the Democratic nominee as a lesser-known, untested and ultimately risky figure. And by picturing Obama with such congressional leaders as Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Charles B. Rangel, the McCain campaign makes a more subtle argument for the first time. Because both houses of Congress are considered likely to remain in Democratic hands, the implication is that a vote for Obama would give the party unchecked power, while a McCain White House would act as a brake against liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Video of this ad can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2008
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U.S. leadership challenged
BYLINE: By Arnaud de Borchgrave, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
It was an era of gargantuan excess not seen the 1920s while at the same time the U.S. is prosecuting two wars that have cost the same amount as the administration's bailout bill, including all the last-minute pork and earmarks, or $200 billion short of $1 trillion.
The bailout was not fashioned to make the rich richer, but to make sure the rich don't get poor. And it wasn't even doing that as the pope warned the world financial system is "built on sand." This triggered panic selling the world over - from 5 percent to 10 percent down to its lowest since the 1987 crisis.
Even though the Moscow stock exchange was closed twice by Kremlin edict after plunging 50 percent, the Russian leadership could barely contain glee over U.S. discomfiture. U.S. global economic leadership, gloated Soviet leaders, is now at an end. President Dmitry Medvedev blamed selfish "American capitalism" for the Wall Street meltdown. "Casino capitalism" was a little less disreputable than "bandit capitalism," but both were widely used at home and abroad.
European Union countries echoed Moscow's call for multilateralism in financial regulation. For French President Nicolas Sarkozy, "laissez-faire" free-market economies would soon go the way of the dodo. Other powerful European voices said the world will never be the same again.
China, confident of its steady ascendancy to superpowerdom, let it be known through think tank exchanges that the moment when Beijing could look Washington "straight in the eye as equals" would come a little sooner than anticipated. Say 2025 instead of 2030.
The post-World War II financial and monetary architecture, known as the Bretton Woods accords, has to go back to the drawing board. With the United States now producing only 25 percent of the world's manufactured goods, the catbird seat will have to be shared. And what the world observed during the America's ongoing crisis was an administration riding to the rescue of financial behemoths and behaving more like a socialist than a capitalist government. At the same time, the FBI launched 24 investigations for possible criminal activities in Manhattan's canyons, including four major financial houses.
Since Day One in the subprime mortgage fiasco in early 2007, sleights of hand, predatory lending, and insider trading have been normal operating procedures. Before the government stepped in, almost 1.3 million homes had been repossessed, up 79 percent from 2006, with another million soon to join the collapsing real estate market. Defaults and foreclosures increased exponentially as easy initial terms expired and home prices didn't go up, but interest rates did.
By last July, major banks and financial institutions had reported losses of half a trillion dollars. The financial bomb that finally exploded in September saw three of the five largest financial institutions on Wall Street collapse in 24 hours.
"We have to be careful about crying 'fire' in a crowded theater," wrote columnist Daniel Gross, "but calling this a meltdown is like crying 'fire' in an inferno." Even America's closest allies were asking whether this is the beginning of the end of U.S. supremacy. President Bush, in his TV appearances, appeared listless and discouraged. John McCain was endeavoring to widen the daylight between his campaign and Mr. Bush's eight years in the White House.
The financial crisis gave Sen. Barack Obama a widening lead at home - and louder hosannas abroad. Most commentators abroad see Mr. Obama as a leader who would initiate "multipolar multilateralism" and "smart power," with more emphasis on soft power and less on hard - military - power.
This still won't put a brake on the pell-mell scramble to join the billionaires club that has gone from 350 to 1,146 members since the beginning of the decade. They now control assets worth twice as much as those held by the world's bottom 2.5 billion, according to the Carnegie Endowment's visiting scholar David Rothkopf.
Not one American in 10,000 understands the financial instruments that enable a growing number of billionaires to make their second billion dollars in a year. Derivatives and hedge funds are incomprehensible to most people, yet congressional committees have heard experts testify they are time bombs that could precipitate a repeat of the Great Depression. One member of the club, who asked his name not be used, dropped $19 billion in recent weeks. But he still has $1 billion left.
To understand how derivatives function you need a modicum of "Differential Calculus," which is how some of the best unregulated hedge fund managers have made $300 million in a single year. The Bank for International Settlements estimates over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, which include "swaps" and "exotic options," have a "notional amount" of $596 trillion (not billion).
While some 700,000 have lost their jobs in the United States thus far this year, the crash of 2008 is still to reverberate throughout the body politic and its economic system. Osama bin Laden's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks inflicted some $700 billion worth of damage to the U.S. economy. The government bailout is worth, again thus far, $700 billion. And the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars, so far, is also $700 billion.
Thus far, however, the megarich have not been unduly perturbed by the maelstrom. The number of "superyachts" (anything longer than 100 feet, costing $2 million per foot) under construction or on order worldwide climbed to 445 in 2008 vs. 81 a decade ago. Martin Redmayne, chairman and editor-in-chief of the Yacht Report told the Financial Times about 90,000 people in the world can afford to buy what builders call a superyacht today, but only 3,500 actually own one.
Helipads, mini-submarines, a car garage, are among the options for the 250 to 550-footers now under construction for buyers in India, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Europe - and the United States. Charter prices range from $60,000 to $2 million - per week.
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington TImes and of United Press International.
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Debating perception;
What McCain needs to 'turn the page'
BYLINE: By Tara Wall, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The heels may be on and the gloves off for Sarah Palin, as she joked at a California rally over the weekend, but if John McCain wants to win tonight's debate (and sway more voters) he'd better keep his gloves on and let his self-professed pit bull do all the biting. Going negative is what campaigns do - that's a given - candidates do not.
Seizing on momentum and economic expediency, the Obama campaign came out swinging yesterday, with its lying-in-wait "Keating Five" ad attacking Mr. McCain. It craftily uses the decades-old savings-and-loan scandal (of which Mr. McCain was essentially exonerated), to raise questions about the Arizona senator's judgment to lead in the midst of this current economic mess. The online ad states: "The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules." The ad, no doubt capitalizes on American voters' present day fears by revisiting the past. Pretty skillful.
But when asked yesterday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" about the "timing" of the "Keating" ad coming on the heels of Mr. McCain's "Ayers" ad linking Barack Obama to admitted terrorist William Ayers, Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs dodged the question entirely by suggesting that the 13-minute ad couldn't just be pulled together that quickly. "Obviously we didn't put this thing together last night," Mr. Gibbs quipped. No, they pulled it together weeks ago, put it on the shelf and waited for such a time as this. Timing is everything - and theirs was impeccable even if the ad wasn't.
Of course, pundits argued across the airwaves whether either of the ads are "fair game" and why the two camps aren't talking about the issues (blah, blah, blah.) Issues be damned - voters do respond to the negative whether they say they like it or not. It is an effective tool - the key is who is doing the attacking and how.
Too bad Mr. McCain doesn't have a Keating Five economic attack of his own. Though he has something close, if not better, which he won't even let his surrogates use. The one topic of attack apparently off the table, but equally raises the judgment question, is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (remember him, the bigot?). While Mr. McCain has forbidden his campaign from using the Wright debacle (certainly if for no other reason than to not appear racist), many would argue (as Mrs. Palin did to the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol) that Mr. Wright is fair game. And he is.
Even more telling is that the Obama campaign is doing all it can to avoid talking about Mr. Wright (as also pointed out on MSNBC's Morning Joe by Pat Buchanan.) Mr. Buchanan was among three panelists who asked Mr. Gibbs three different ways about whether the Rev. Wright question was just as legitimate to raise. Since Mr. McCain's character comes into question in regard to Charles Keating, why not Mr. Obama's as it relates to Mr. Wright? Mr. Gibbs consistently refused to answer even the "legitimacy" question and instead pivoted to call the McCain campaign "negative" and "desperate." What's good for the goose apparently isn't so for the gander.
But there is the overriding argument that the more these campaigns focus the negative, the less they are drawing contrasts between their policies, particularly at a time when the only policy that matters to Americans is economics. So, for the sake of argument, Mr. McCain would do well tonight to draw contrasts between free-market capitalists such as himself and the liberal, big-government tax and spend policies of his opponent. He should also hammer home how the Democrat-controlled Congress, with its record low approval, has major culpability in the economic crisis. As much as the public would like to blame Republicans (and there is enough blame to go around there) Democrats (going back to Bill Clinton) have just as much, if not more blood on their hands - including the failed, partisan leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
At the time of last week's bailout package passage, only 30 percent of voters - according to Rasmussen - actually favored it. And soon after, consumer and investor confidence took a dive. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama now enjoys anywhere from a 6- to 10-point lead over Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama hasn't really offered anything substantive, except more big government. But for better or worse - it is perception that is in Mr. Obama's favor. Mr. McCain will have to do much more to change that perception when he goes before tonight's audience of undecided voters in Nashville and addresses those tuning in. His own economic gaffes early on haven't helped, nor his schizophrenic reaction to the financial mess and energy spent defending himself against attacks.
Mrs. Palin told a Florida crowd yesterday that Mr. McCain is, "The only man who will solve this economic crisis." Problem is, he isn't spending nearly enough time telling us how.
Tara Wall is deputy editorial page editor of The Washington Times. twall@washington times.com.
LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2008
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Republican sets traps, gains ground;
Democrat target of 'gotcha' tactic in tight Colorado Senate race
BYLINE: By Valerie Richardson, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: PLUGGED IN - POLITICS; B01
As an yone who has ever run against Bob Schaffer knows, it's only a matter of time before the "gotcha" moment. It's that instant right after Mr. Schaffer ma-
neuvers his opponent into making what appears to be a harmless statement. Like four years ago, during a debate against Pete Coors in the Republican Senate primary, when Mr. Schaffer repeatedly cited a man named Paul Martin.
Finally, an exasperated Mr. Coors demanded, "Who's Paul Martin?"
The answer, as Mr. Schaffer quickly pointed out, was that Mr. Martin was the prime minister of Canada. Suddenly, Mr. Schaffer looked like an expert on foreign affairs while Mr. Coors came across as a guy who had never left the state. Gotcha.
Mr. Schaffer, 46, lost that election, but he hasn't changed his strategy. If anything, the gotcha moments are flying faster and thicker than ever in this year's tight Senate race against Democratic Rep. Mark Udall, one of up to 10 contests Democrats are watching closely as they push for a filibuster-proof majority.
Mr. Udall, 58, has never trailed in the race, but his early double-digit lead has slipped in recent polls. The latest Denver Post poll, conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research and released Sunday, showed Mr. Udall leading Mr. Schaffer by 43 percent to 38 percent.
Another 20 percent are undecided. A third-party candidate, the Green Party's Bob Kinsey, was polling at 4 percent of the vote.
The same poll found the presidential race even tighter, with Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain tied at 44 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. Democrats hold a razor-thin 51-49 majority in the Senate and have a shot at getting up to the 60 seats they need to avoid filibusters.
If Mr. Schaffer can't make up that ground with relentless trap-springing and opposition research, it won't be for lack of trying. The latest example came last week, when he announced that he supported a tax holiday for U.S. firms overseas.
Mr. Udall, who has long hammered at Mr. Schaffer for voting for tax cuts for oil companies, took the bait, blasting his opponent for favoring yet another tax break for big corporations.
Uh-oh. It turned out that Mr. Udall backed that same idea four years ago when he came out in favor of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. The Udall campaign tried to recover by saying that the congressman had tried to strip that particular provision out of the bill.
Again, big mistake. The Schaffer campaign promptly whipped out Mr. Udall's floor statement on the bill, in which the congressman specifically lauded the tax-holiday provision.
"I will vote for [the act] because it includes provisions to encourage American corporations doing business abroad to repatriate their overseas earnings for investment here at
home," Mr. Udall said in the 2004 floor statement.
The difference is that Mr. Schaffer's proposal is a prescription for the current economic crisis, said Udall spokeswoman Tara Trujillo.
"I'd like to see Bob Schaffer tell a Colorado family that's about to lose their home that his prescription is to give money to companies working offshore," Ms. Trujillo said.
Not that the Udall camp hasn't had its moments. In May, for example, the Schaffer campaign released a televised ad showing a mountain range and identifying it as Pike's Peak near Colorado Springs. It turned out to be the Denali in Alaska.
What makes Mr. Schaffer unique is the setup, the way he lures his unwitting opponents into making assertions that he knows he can refute immediately. Asked to comment, Mr. Schaffer demurred.
"You make it sound like something remarkable, but I'm just stating the facts," he said. "For most politicians, these wouldn't be gotcha moments, but they are for Mark Udall."
The Udall campaign accused Mr. Schaffer of trying to dodge the issues. "I think Bob's trying to distract people from the fact that he's so out of touch that the best he can do is play games," Ms. Trujillo said.
Indeed, there are risks involved with Mr. Schaffer's strategy. While he has succeeded in catching Mr. Udall off-guard on a number of occasions, the Republican has put himself at risk of alienating voters by appearing unduly strident or combative next to the affable Democrat.
"Udall, while obviously liberal, is a pleasant person. He comes across as pleasant, and you can go a long way in life with a good smile and a pleasing personality," said Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli.
Mr. Schaffer set the tone early in the campaign at a July 14 debate sponsored by KUSA-TV, the local NBC affiliate. Asked to justify U.S. involvement in Iraq, Mr. Schaffer read a list of reasons defending the war, then asked those who agreed to raise their hands.
He then noted that nobody on Mr. Udall's side of the aisle had done so, and announced, "What I just read was Mark Udall's resolution supporting a declaration of war in Iraq."
Then there was the July 28 debate sponsored by KDVR-TV, the local Fox affiliate, in which Mr. Schaffer predicted House Democrats would vote to adjourn instead of taking up an energy bill. Mr. Udall insisted that he would vote to stay in session.
Three days later, however, Mr. Udall, bedeviled by a busy campaign schedule, missed the vote by minutes, and the adjournment passed 213-212, meaning that his vote would have kept the House in session.
It wasn't long before the National Republican Senatorial Committee had launched ads accusing Mr. Udall of breaking his promise and missing "a critical vote that could have led to lower gas prices."
Mr. Schaffer again was in full pounce mode at the Sept. 28 candidates debate on "Meet the Press." During a discussion on the financial crisis, Mr. Udall, as expected, criticized Mr. Schaffer for favoring less government regulation.
Mr. Schaffer responded by pulling out three 2005 House bills that would have increased restrictions on federal home-loan banks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, then noted that Mr. Udall had opposed all three.
Mr. Udall replied that Mr. Schaffer could have taken action during his tenure in Congress when Republicans held the majority. Mr. Schaffer served three terms in the House, ending in 2002. Mr. Udall was elected in 1998.
LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2008
GRAPHIC: Former U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer (left) debates Democratic Rep. Mark Udall of Colorado during a taping of "Meet the Press" at the NBC studios Sept. 28 in Washington. Mr. Schaffer and Mr. Udall are competing for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated by Sen. Wayne Allard. [Photo by Getty Images]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
McCain hits Obama's past as he struggles in red states
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. John McCain challenged his Democratic presidential opponent Sen. Barack Obama's honor and honesty on the eve of Tuesday's presidential debate, injecting a personal tone heading into the face-to-face showdown as he sought to refocus the race on Mr. Obama's character.
"My opponent's touchiness every time he is questioned about his record should make us only more concerned," Mr. McCain said in New Mexico, suggesting that Mr. Obama was hiding something. "It's as if somehow the usual rules don't apply, and where other candidates have to explain themselves and their records, Senator Obama seems to think he is above all that."
In an across-the-board assault Monday, Mr. McCain accused Mr. Obama of lying on his economic record. The Republican's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has raised Mr. Obama's ties to William Ayers, a founder of the radical Weather Underground group that bombed government buildings to protest the Vietnam War, and the Republican National Committee filed a complaint arguing that Mr. Obama had taken illegal campaign contributions.The McCain campaign also announced a commercial arguing that the Democrat is "dishonorable" and "dangerous" for having voted against a troop funding bill. Mr. Obama did vote against one war-spending bill that became law, though he voted in favor of other versions.
With the second of three face-to-face debates between the two men scheduled for Tuesday night, the ghosts of campaigns past have begun to haunt both of them - mainly because Mr. McCain is determined to make their past a central issue.
While claiming to be above the fray, Mr. Obama's campaign retaliated in kind, accusing Mr. McCain of extensive ties to a convicted felon from the savings and loan scandal. It released a 13-minute Web video rehashing Mr. McCain's role as one of the Keating Five - four Democratic senators and Mr. McCain who faced scrutiny for their relationships with Charles H. Keating Jr., who was convicted of fraud for his mismanagement of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association.
The senator from Illinois said the new attacks were "political shenanigans, smear tactics," designed to distract from the economy issue.
"I cannot imagine anything more important to talk about than the economic crisis," he told reporters while campaigning in Asheville, N.C.
Mr. McCain finds himself with decreasing options for how to win the race, even by his campaign's own yardsticks.
Last week, McCain advisers said they took solace in the fact that they had kept Mr. Obama under 50 percent in polls - though three polls released Monday put the Democrat over that mark. And the McCain advisers said they were ahead or tied in every state President Bush won in 2004, though the state-by-state averages on RealClearPolitics.com show Mr. McCain trailing in Colorado, Ohio, Florida, Nevada and Virginia.
Even Mr. McCain's ad strategy is troubled.
Evan Tracey, whose Campaign Media Analysis Group tracks campaign advertising, said in his blog Monday that Mr. McCain's early season gamble winning red states without expending resources there has failed. Mr. McCain and the Republican National Committee now find themselves having to run ads to defend those red states.
"While the McCain campaign is playing defense with valuable resources, the Obama camp is spending more and more money on ads in some of the key media markets in states such as Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania," Mr. Tracey writes.
In yesterday's back-and-forth, the Obama campaign's video tying Mr. McCain to Mr. Keating relied heavily on William K. Black, who was deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. and who met with the senators and said he felt they were pressuring him to back away from an investigation of the finances of Lincoln, Mr. Keating's savings and loan.
In the video, Mr. Black says the same problems that plagued the S&Ls now plague the broader Wall Street financial services industry, and the Obama campaign says it's a result of the economic philosophy Mr. McCain shares.
Mr. McCain was subject to a Senate hearing and rebuke for his role, though star lawyer Robert Bennett, who served as Democratic counsel on the Senate committee that investigated the issue, said there was no substance to the charges and that Mr. McCain was swept up in a partisan affair.
"Based on all of the evidence, I concluded that there was no violation of any Senate rules, of any laws, of any ethical standards," Mr. Bennett told XM Radio's POTUS '08 station Monday.
Democrats argued that Mr. Bennett is no longer impartial because Mr. McCain in 2007 hired him as an attorney.
Mr. Obama fought charges that he has close ties to Mr. Ayers, the Weather Underground figure. His campaign said he did not know of Mr. Ayers' background, and he himself said it was "guilt by association."
"He engaged in these despicable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old. I served on a board with him," Mr. Obama told Roland Martin on the Tom Joyner Radio Show.
Mr. McCain's campaign argues that those ties are deeper, and Mr. McCain said Mr. Obama must begin to answer more questions.
"Rather than answer his critics, Senator Obama will try to distract you from noticing that he never answers the serious and legitimate questions he has been asked," he said. "I don't need lessons about telling the truth to American people. And were I ever to need any improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn't seek advice from a Chicago politician."
LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2008
GRAPHIC: Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and his wife, Cindy, greet supporters at a rally Monday on the campus of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. [Photo by Getty Images]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
BYLINE: By Frank J. Gaffney Jr., THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Suddenly, the presidential campaigns are addressing an issue that should have been at the forefront of this year's election long ago. Call it "characters count." We know people - especially public figures - by the company they keep. And we need to know much more about, to put it charitably, the characters that have figured prominently for years in Barack Obama's life.
Over the weekend, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin brought the issue to the fore by observing caustically that the Democrats' would-be commander in chief has "palled around with terrorists."
The Obama campaign immediately deployed talking points and a television ad conjuring up Charles Keating, a one-time friend and supporter of John McCain who was a driving force behind the 1980s-era savings and loan debacle.
The problem for Barack Obama is that convicted - and unrepentant - terrorist William Ayers is not the only person with a profound animosity toward this country with whom he has "palled around" since his youth. It is not, as the Democratic candidate maintains, a distraction or a sign of desperation on the part of his opponents that serious questions are finally being asked about the nature and the implications of the judgment he has exhibited in the past - and may exhibit in the future - as evidenced by his myriad and profoundly troubling personal ties. That is especially the case since so little is known about the junior senator from Illinois and what he really means by "change."
Take for example, the formative influence in Barack Obama's youth that he calls in his memoirs simply "Frank." As it happens, the Frank in question was Frank Marshall Davis, a well-known Stalinist communist in Hawaii whose attachment to the Soviet Union and hatred for an America as racist and imperialistic caused the FBI to keep him under surveillance for at least 19 years. Evidently, young Mr. Obama and his father spent hours in the company of this mentor, presumably soaking in not only his alcohol but his virulent hostility toward America.
We now know a similar view was espoused routinely from the pulpit of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ. Mr. Obama maintains he somehow had not heard any of Mr. Wright's loathing of this country - epitomized by the latter's notorious plea cursing America in God's name. When confronted with evidence of it, he could not bring himself to disassociate from his pastor of 20 years until that tie properly threatened to scupper his candidacy during the Democratic primaries.
Thanks to the intrepid Stanley Kurtz, we also have learned of Mr. Obama's longstanding ties to another fixture of the radical left, one emblematic of its enmity toward an America seen as oppressive and racist: the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (better known as ACORN). Mr. Obama trained ACORN personnel, worked with its activists on the group's (often problematic) voter-registration efforts and consulted with its most aggressive operatives. Pre-eminent among the latter has been one Madeline Talbott.
Mr. Obama also secured, through his position on the Woods Fund and Chicago Annenberg Challenge boards (he served on the former with Bill Ayers), funding for ACORN's intimidation campaigns against banks that failed to make subprime style loans to otherwise ineligible would-be homeowners. As Mr. Kurtz put it in the New York Post (http://www.nypost.com/seven/09292008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/os_dangerous_pals_131216.htm?page=0), "It would be tough to find an 'on the ground' community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama."
To the extent that the economic effects of the subprime meltdown makes Charles Keating's S&L raid on the Treasury look like a church social, Mr. Obama should be careful about casting stones in that direction.
Even more worrisome from a national security perspective are some of Mr. Obama's ties to prominent figures in the world of radical Islam. These include another racist black nationalist, Don Warden, who converted to Islam and changed his name to Khalid al-Mansour. According to Kenneth Timmerman in Newsmax, Mr. al-Mansour has worked closely to advance the influence operations in America of one of Saudi Arabia's most insidious royal billionaires, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
The latter has appreciated for some time the help America's higher education institutions could give his Islamist "soft jihad" - the effort to legitimate and insinuate Islamic law (Shariah) into this country.
Toward that end, he has bought leading Middle East studies programs, notably at Georgetown and Harvard University, and reportedly helped advance Mr. Obama's candidacy to the latter's law school.
Then, there is the case of Rashid Khalidi, a former colleague of Mr. Obama's at the University of Chicago and now a professor at Columbia. Mr. Khalidi is an enthusiastic supporter of the Palestinians, fervent critic of Israel (which he calls a destructive "racist" state), an admirer of suicide bombers and a driving force behind the Arab American Action Network (AAAN). This so-called pro-Palestinian "community organization" in Chicago is another beneficiary of the largess of the Obama-Ayers team at the Woods Fund and promotes an agenda that would horrify many of Mr. Obama's Jewish supporters.
Tonight's town-hall style debate between Barack Obama and John McCain offers the public an opportunity to explore a basic question: Have these and similar influences on Sen. Obama's life in fact been influential - and, if so, will they translate into personnel, policies and practices that are inimical to our country, its people and security if he is elected?
We have a need to know. Characters count.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.
LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 6, 2008 Monday
Final Edition
Obama allies say GOP should back off attacks;
Democrat's surrogates threaten to tie McCain to Keating scandal
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-4
DATELINE: ASHEVILLE, N.C.
Democrat Barack Obama's allies warn that Republican John McCain's attacks on the Democrat's character will lead to the political equivalent of mutual assured destruction: Fire your big weapon at your own peril.
Several Obama surrogates said his supporters may start reminding voters of McCain's ties to Charles Keating, a convicted savings and loan owner whose actions two decades ago triggered a Senate ethics investigation that involved McCain as one of the "Keating Five."
The warnings of massive retaliation came as McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, took on the role of attacker and said that Obama sees America as so imperfect "that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."
She was referring to an early Obama supporter, 1960s radical Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground whose members were blamed for several bombings when Obama was a child.
Yesterday, Obama unveiled a TV ad on the economy that paints McCain was "erratic in a crisis." Some see that as a reminder of McCain's age, 72.
Democrats were well-synchronized yesterday, using the word "erratic" and Keating's name in nearly-matching sentences across the talk show circuit.
"This is going to be a month, I think, of character assassination," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., an Obama supporter, said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
Obama, too, alluded to harsher tactics in a speech yesterday to thousands of people in Asheville, N.C.
McCain and his aides, Obama said, "are gambling that he can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance."
Noting the nation's economic problems, Obama said: "Yet instead of addressing these crises, Senator McCain's campaign has announced that they plan to turn the page on the discussion about our economy and spend the final weeks of this campaign launching Swift Boat-style attacks on me."
Obama has denounced Ayers' radical views and activities. However, Ayers hosted a small gathering for Obama in 1995, early in his political career. Obama and Ayers live in the same Chicago neighborhood and served on a charity board together, but there is no evidence they have palled around.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a Chicago Democrat and Obama supporter, warned against McCain's strategy. "At 58, John McCain was associating with Charles Keating," he said. "If we really want to talk who is associating with who, we will." In the late 1980s, McCain made what he has called "the worst mistake of my life." He participated in two meetings with banking regulators on behalf of Keating, a friend, campaign contributor and S&L financier who was later convicted of securities fraud.
The Senate ethics committee investigated five senators' relationships with Keating. It cited McCain for a lesser role than the others, but faulted his "poor judgment."
LOAD-DATE: October 10, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
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The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 6, 2008 Monday
Metro Edition
MAKING COAL CLEAN WON'T BE EASY
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B6
Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden recently put his foot in his mouth in Ohio, contradicting Sen. Barack Obama's position on "clean coal."
"No coal plants in America," he told a woman on a rope line at a campaign stop in Ohio. "We're not supporting clean coal."
The campaign quickly got Biden back on track, which didn't stop John McCain from releasing a misleading ad claiming that Obama didn't support clean coal.
But maybe Obama should listen to Biden on this one. "Clean coal" is really an oxymoron. Coal is a dirty fuel, period. There is only so much that can be done to make it less polluting.
Clean-coal proponents are putting most of their bets on one technique -- carbon capture and sequestration. The idea of CCS is to capture the carbon dioxide emitted from burning coal and divert it either underground or into oceans.
But that's a long way from being commercially viable, and the method poses long-term safety risks that should not be ignored.
The federal government is not doing its part to prepare for large-scale CCS, a recent Government Accountability Office report concluded. "Federal agencies have begun to address some CCS barriers but have yet to comprehensively address the full range of issues that would require resolution for commercial-scale CCS deployment," the report stated.
One issue that shouldn't be overlooked is safety. Massive amounts of carbon dioxide could be deadly if released.
In 1986, a huge cloud of CO2 erupted from a volcanic lake in Cameroon. CO2 is denser than air, so the 150-foot-thick, 14-mile-long cloud of concentrated gas stayed close to the ground as it flowed down the slope.
The cloud suffocated 1,700 people.
This was not a man-made catastrophe, of course. And no one knows why the CO2 erupted. But if CCS is going to have a measurable impact on the level of CO2 released into the atmosphere, billions of tons of the gas will need to be sequestered every year.
Before that is allowed to happen, the coal power industry needs to demonstrate conclusively that doing so is safe.
The industry's intense interest in securing liability waivers for any CO2 mishaps, however, shouldn't fill anyone with confidence.
In addition to safety, there are cost issues. The carbon capture process is energy intensive, which means that much of the electricity generated by burning coal will be lost to capturing the carbon emissions. This could double the retail cost of electricity, according to a U.S. Department of Energy study.
"Clean coal" sounds good. But achieving that goal is a long, long way off, and many difficult issues need to be resolved before it will ever be feasible.
LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
EDITORIAL: Making coal clean won't be easy: Capturing and storing carbon emissions on a large-scale, commercial basis poses many difficult and dangerous issues that must be overcome.
BYLINE: The Roanoke Times, Va.
Oct. 6--Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden recently put his foot in his mouth in Ohio, contradicting Sen. Barack Obama's position on "clean coal."
"No coal plants in America," he told a woman on a rope line at a campaign stop in Ohio. "We're not supporting clean coal."
The campaign quickly got Biden back on track, which didn't stop John McCain from releasing a misleading ad claiming that Obama didn't support clean coal.
But maybe Obama should listen to Biden on this one. "Clean coal" is really an oxymoron. Coal is a dirty fuel, period. There is only so much that can be done to make it less polluting.
Clean-coal proponents are putting most of their bets on one technique -- carbon capture and sequestration. The idea of CCS is to capture the carbon dioxide emitted from burning coal and divert it either underground or into oceans.
But that's a long way from being commercially viable, and the method poses long-term safety risks that should not be ignored.
The federal government is not doing its part to prepare for large-scale CCS, a recent Government Accountability Office report concluded. "Federal agencies have begun to address some CCS barriers but have yet to comprehensively address the full range of issues that would require resolution for commercial-scale CCS deployment," the report stated.
One issue that shouldn't be overlooked is safety. Massive amounts of carbon dioxide could be deadly if released.
In 1986, a huge cloud of CO2 erupted from a volcanic lake in Cameroon. CO2 is denser than air, so the 150-foot-thick, 14-mile-long cloud of concentrated gas stayed close to the ground as it flowed down the slope.
The cloud suffocated 1,700 people.
This was not a man-made catastrophe, of course. And no one knows why the CO2 erupted. But if CCS is going to have a measurable impact on the level of CO2 released into the atmosphere, billions of tons of the gas will need to be sequestered every year.
Before that is allowed to happen, the coal power industry needs to demonstrate conclusively that doing so is safe.
The industry's intense interest in securing liability waivers for any CO2 mishaps, however, shouldn't fill anyone with confidence.
In addition to safety, there are cost issues. The carbon capture process is energy intensive, which means that much of the electricity generated by burning coal will be lost to capturing the carbon emissions. This could double the retail cost of electricity, according to a U.S. Department of Energy study.
"Clean coal" sounds good. But achieving that goal is a long, long way off, and many difficult issues need to be resolved before it will ever be feasible.
To see more of The Roanoke Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.roanoke.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, The Roanoke Times, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 6, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 6, 2008 Monday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Remedial Civics for registrars
When I visited my local registrar, I requested a list of the presidential electors. The whole staff was baffled. I had to show them on their own guide ballot that we will not be voting for any presidential candidates, but rather electors. I explained that the electors would meet in their state capitols on the third Wednesday in December to cast their votes for president. Those ballots will be sent to the president of the U.S. Senate to be opened and counted in January. I wanted to see a list of each candidate's electors. Nobody knew, nor seemed to care! Where are the lists, if the registrars don't have them?
Joe C. Phibbs
Chesapeake
Party houses at ODU
"ODU parties storm through neighborhoods," op-ed, Sept. 21, spoke of the irresponsible behavior of some Old Dominion University students in the Larchmont section of the city, west of Hampton Boulevard. I would like to add to this story.
I live on the east side of Hampton Boulevard, behind the Ted Constant Convocation Center. While every year there is a problem house or two, hosting too many parties and leaving a wake of destruction, this year's students have brought with them an unprecedented amount of trash.
The problem is not just a house or two but seems to stretch for entire blocks. These students are indifferent to community standards and decency. The neighborhood is awash in cigarette butts, broken beer bottles, aluminum cans, party cups and other assorted debris. With the recent rash of robberies, I can only think of the adage, "Filth breeds pestilence."
Kirk Springer
Norfolk
Murdered vs. killed
There are times when it is simply more appropriate to state that a person has been "murdered" in the line of duty, rather than "killed," as is more typically invoked. Soldiers and sailors engaged in combat are subject to being "killed" in the line of duty, and it's a powerfully sad day every time it happens.
In stark contrast, on Aug. 7, Virginia Beach police detective Michael Phillips was murdered, while performing his job, by a drug-dealing thug. Let me be clear for anyone who is confused: The drug dealer purposefully fired multiple gunshots into the victim at point-blank range with the intent of ending his life.
Unfortunately, the drug dealer succeeded in murdering the detective. This is not a lecture on grammar or a debate on synonyms, but certain situations demand bluntly accurate language. Keep this in mind as the family and friends of the murdered officer watch the murderer file legal appeals for the next 25 years, at taxpayer expense, of course.
Jeff Johnson
Chesapeake
Raise the bar with McCain
It's amazing to me that we, as Americans, act surprised to find that our economy is failing, our educational system is faltering and our leadership for the future is lacking. Why are we surprised? We not only allowed this to happen; we brought it on ourselves.
We lowered the bar for obtaining credit; we lowered the bar for obtaining an education; and now, we are lowering the bar for obtaining a president.
We have had presidents who pushed the bar down themselves in regard to honesty, integrity, faithfulness and morality. As Americans, we are about to take it down another notch for drug use.
We have had one president who admitted he used marijuana ("but didn't inhale") and one president who was alleged to have used cocaine ("when I was young and irresponsible"), but, to the best of my knowledge, never have we had a presidential nominee who admitted he had committed a felony crime such as cocaine use, until now.
Admission of prior cocaine use bars one from employment in the commercial nuclear power industry. It bars one from employment in the federal government or military working in, with or around nuclear material. These rules are in place because cocaine users (present or past) are not trusted in positions of responsibility. So how can we elect a president who will have his finger on the world's nuclear button who admits to having used cocaine? By lowering the bar, that's how.
Where can we find a president who has a stellar past, who went above and beyond the call of duty, who can bring dignity, honor and morality to the White House? We can find that in John McCain. Has he always been right? No. Is he everything we always wanted in a president? No. Does he have what it takes to guide us through the tumultuous years ahead? Absolutely.
McCain spent time listening to talk that he didn't believe in, not 20 years in a church pew, but five years in a POW cell. McCain spent 22 years as a naval officer shooting bullets at our enemies, not two years as a community antagonist shooting staples in telephone poles. McCain spent 22 years as a U.S. senator voting on controversial bills, not eight years as a state senator voting "present" to avoid confrontations. The choice is clear in the upcoming election. Do we raise the bar back up to where it should be, or do we lower it yet again?
G. R. Stallings
Virginia Beach
U.S. needs energy bridge
Re "Democrats will let drilling ban lapse," front page, Sept. 24:
Eighteen billion barrels of oil beneath the Outer Continental Shelf, and we don't have to pay Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or Russia a penny for any of it. Yet Rep. Bobby Scott and Democratic leaders in Congress don't think it is worth the effort to get it.
Compare that to the bipartisan group, which Rep. Thelma Drake joined, that favors drilling for the oil and gas along with legislation that would have provided federal investments for inland shale and wind, solar and hydrogen.
Experts agree that changing our energy use away from fossil fuel products in the amount needed, and with acceptable prices, is at least 15 to 20 years in the future. In the meantime, we are stuck with gasoline cars and trucks, home heating oil furnaces and coal-burning generating plants. We need to move to the future, but we need a bridge to get there. Let us not make the mistake we made after the energy crisis in the 1970s.
Wendell Banyay
Suffolk
Racial excuse-making
Re "Proud American," letter, Oct. 3: Although I've never experienced the racial discrimination and life experiences of the letter writer, neither has Michelle Obama. While I have empathy for anyone who has been historically denied opportunity or even civil treatment as a matter of public policy or law, you can't legislate against stupidity or what people feel in their hearts. The civil rights movement has changed the law and public policy, but for many who never lived under the pre-Civil Rights Act conditions of segregation, the color of their skin is an all-consuming excuse for everything that isn't right in America.
Al Quartararo
Virginia Beach
LOAD-DATE: October 6, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 6, 2008 Monday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Amid increasingly personal attacks, McCain called 'erratic'
BYLINE: STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
By Stephen Ohlemacher
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON
Democrat Barack Obama's campaign called his Republican rival "erratic" in a television commercial released Sunday as both campaigns stepped up personal attacks.
"Our financial system in turmoil," an announcer says in the ad. "And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy."
The ad, slated to start running today on national cable, seeks to capitalize on John McCain's response to the nation's financial crisis while rebutting Republican attacks on Obama's character.
As Congress worked to pass the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, McCain announced that he would suspend his campaign and skip the first presidential debate while he worked on a solution.
He attended the debate even as the deal in Congress faltered.
Republicans contend McCain's actions showed leadership while addressing a serious issue.
"In the midst of it all, I think you saw Sen. McCain, unlike Sen. Obama, come off the campaign trail, because that's John McCain in the middle of a crisis," Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., a McCain supporter, said Sunday in a broadcast interview.
Democrats say McCain tried to politicize the crisis with a campaign gimmick, and they've adopted "erratic" as their buzzword to describe him .
Obama's surrogates were well-synchronized on the Sunday talk shows, with Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Dianne Feinstein of California using the word "erratic" to describe McCain's handling of the unprecedented financial rescue package.
"One day, no bailout. The next day, a bailout. One day, I'm suspending my campaign. The next day, I'm not," McCaskill said.
Lieberman and McCaskill were interviewed on "Fox News Sunday." Feinstein was interviewed on CBS' "Face the Nation."
LOAD-DATE: October 6, 2008
GRAPHIC: alex brandon | the associated press An ad by Barack Obama to begin running today on national cable seeks to capitalize on John McCain's response to the nation's financial crisis while rebutting attacks on Obama's character.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 6, 2008 Monday
Suburban Edition
Candidates Prepare for Tuesday's Town Hall Debate;
Format Is Seen As McCain Forte
BYLINE: Michael Abramowitz and Perry Bacon Jr.; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A06
DATELINE: SEDONA, Ariz., Oct. 5
In one of the most beautiful spots on the globe, Sen. John McCain spent much of Saturday holed up in a dark hotel conference room, engaged in intense debate preparation. At the end of it, the GOP nominee told his aides that was crazy, and so Sunday's first round of debate prep was held outside, near the creek by his house in the scenic Arizona desert.
Other than that last-minute audible, McCain appears to be engaged in especially serious preparations for Tuesday's debate, one of his last opportunities to change the trajectory of a race that may be slipping out of his control. He is certainly doing more formal preparation than he did before last month's debate in Mississippi.
Since leaving Washington on Thursday, McCain has kept a light schedule, his only public appearances being two town-hall-style events in Colorado -- that will be the format of Tuesday's debate in Nashville. On Saturday and Sunday, he held three formal practice sessions, with former Ohio congressman Rob Portman standing in for Obama.
"McCain has done so many of these over the years that it's probably going to be the best kind of forum he is going to be in," said his former campaign manager Terry Nelson. "It's a great opportunity for him and the campaign."
Obama aides were trying to raise expectations for McCain even higher.
"We are expecting to see John McCain at the top of his game," said Jen Psaki, a campaign spokeswoman. "Town halls have been the signature event of both of his presidential campaigns -- he likes them, feels he does well at them and credits them for his political comeback in the summer of 2007."
Obama is preparing in Asheville, N.C., in a state where he is hoping to sway voters who typically vote Republican in presidential elections. He was joined at a resort hotel by several top aides, including strategists David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, campaign manager David Plouffe, and Greg Craig, the Washington lawyer and Clinton administration official who has portrayed McCain in practice debates.
In the words of one campaign aide, Obama will seek Tuesday to continue his efforts to present himself as a "very pragmatic, non-ideological and very even-keeled" politician, one who can be trusted to take over the country at a time of uncertainty abroad and at home.
At the same time, the Obama campaign is trying to raise questions about McCain's temperament, launching a television ad today that labels the Arizona senator as "erratic in a crisis." [Ad Watch, A5.]
Speaking Sunday to thousands gathered on the football field of Asheville High School, Obama predicted that McCain would seek to "distract you with smears" in the final month of the campaign.
"Senator McCain's campaign has announced that they plan to 'turn the page' on the discussion about our economy and spend the final weeks of this campaign launching Swift-boat-style attacks on me," Obama said. "Senator McCain and his operatives are gambling that he can distract you. . . . I want you to know that I'm going to keep on talking about issues that matter."
He was alluding to the suggestion by McCain aides that they intend to ratchet up attacks on Obama to try to halt his recent momentum, especially questioning his judgment for his associations with 1960s radical William Ayers and convicted Chicago developer Antoin "Tony" Rezko.
An open question is how aggressively McCain will take the fight to Obama on Tuesday night. One senior McCain adviser said Sunday that he expects both candidates to draw contrasts with each other on the economy, but he seemed to suggest McCain would stay away from personal attacks.
This official said McCain is looking forward to the debate because he likes the freewheeling town hall format, and he expects it to focus on the candidates' economic plans.
"The key for McCain, if he is to close the race, is to argue that the change Obama wants is change Americans don't want," said Sara M. Taylor, former White House political director for President Bush. "Whether it's higher taxes or increased government involvement in health care, Senators McCain and Obama couldn't be more different."
Gibbs, the Obama strategist, said that any personal or character-based attacks from McCain would be complicated by the style of the debate, in which the candidates will take questions posed by audience members and, through moderator Tom Brokaw of NBC, from people online.
"I think they've announced they want people to forget about the economy and talk about Barack Obama," Gibbs said. "I think that's very dangerous and very hard in a debate where you are taking questions from real people."
Bacon reported from Asheville.
LOAD-DATE: October 6, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Scott Halleran -- Getty Images; Sen. Barack Obama campaigns at Asheville High School in Asheville, N.C. He told supporters that as the election nears, "Senator McCain and his operatives are gambling that he can distract you."
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 6, 2008 Monday
Regional Edition
BYLINE: Sebastian Mallaby
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A15
The financial turmoil has pushed the Obama campaign into the lead, and this is mostly justified. Barack Obama is more thoughtful on the economy than his opponent, and his bench of advisers is superior. But there's a troubling side to the Democratic advance. The claim that the financial crisis reflects Bush-McCain deregulation is not only nonsense. It is the sort of nonsense that could matter.
The real roots of the crisis lie in a flawed response to China. Starting in the 1990s, the flood of cheap products from China kept global inflation low, allowing central banks to operate relatively loose monetary policies. But the flip side of China's export surplus was that China had a capital surplus, too. Chinese savings sloshed into asset markets 'round the world, driving up the price of everything from Florida condos to Latin American stocks.
That gave central bankers a choice: Should they carry on targeting regular consumer inflation, which Chinese exports had pushed down, or should they restrain asset inflation, which Chinese savings had pushed upward? Alan Greenspan's Fed chose to stand aside as asset prices rose; it preferred to deal with bubbles after they popped by cutting interest rates rather than by preventing those bubbles from inflating. After the dot-com bubble, this clean-up-later policy worked fine. With the real estate bubble, it has proved disastrous.
So the first cause of the crisis lies with the Fed, not with deregulation. If too much money was lent and borrowed, it was because Chinese savings made capital cheap and the Fed was not aggressive enough in hiking interest rates to counteract that. Moreover, the Fed's track record of cutting interest rates to clear up previous bubbles had created a seductive one-way bet. Financial engineers built huge mountains of debt partly because they expected to profit in good times -- and then be rescued by the Fed when they got into trouble.
Of course, the financiers did create those piles of debt, and they certainly deserve some blame for today's crisis. But was the financiers' miscalculation caused by deregulation? Not really.
The key financiers in this game were not the mortgage lenders, the ratings agencies or the investment banks that created those now infamous mortgage securities. In different ways, these players were all peddling financial snake oil, but as Columbia University's Charles Calomiris observes, there will always be snake-oil salesmen. Rather, the key financiers were the ones who bought the toxic mortgage products. If they hadn't been willing to buy snake oil, nobody would have been peddling it.
Who were the purchasers? They were by no means unregulated. U.S. investment banks, regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, bought piles of toxic waste. U.S. commercial banks, regulated by several agencies, including the Fed, also devoured large quantities. European banks, which faced a different and supposedly more up-to-date supervisory scheme, turn out to have been just as rash. By contrast, lightly regulated hedge funds resisted buying toxic waste for the most part -- though they are now vulnerable to the broader credit crunch because they operate with borrowed money.
If that doesn't convince you that deregulation is the wrong scapegoat, consider this: The appetite for toxic mortgages was fueled by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the super-regulated housing finance companies. Calomiris calculates that Fannie and Freddie bought more than a third of the $3 trillion in junk mortgages created during the bubble and that they did so because heavy government oversight obliged them to push money toward marginal home purchasers. There's a vigorous argument about whether Calomiris's number is too high. But everyone concedes that Fannie and Freddie poured fuel on the fire to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
So blaming deregulation for the financial mess is misguided. But it is dangerous, too, because one of the big challenges for the next president will be to defend markets against the inevitable backlash that follows this crisis. Even before finance went haywire, the Doha trade negotiations had collapsed; wage stagnation for middle-class Americans had raised legitimate questions about whom the market system served; and the food-price spike had driven many emerging economies to give up on global agricultural markets as a source of food security. Coming on top of all these challenges, the financial turmoil is bound to intensify skepticism about markets. Framing the mess as the product of deregulation will make the backlash nastier.
The next president will have to make some subtle choices. In certain areas, markets need to be reformed -- by pushing murky "over-the-counter" trades between banks onto transparent exchanges, for example. In other areas, government needs to fix itself -- by not subsidizing reckless mortgage lending. But a president who has a mandate only to reregulate will be a boxer with a missing glove. By going along with the market skepticism of his party, Obama may end up winning an election while compromising his presidency.
smallaby@cfr.org
LOAD-DATE: October 6, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 6, 2008 Monday
Regional Edition
Obama Attack Gets Asterisk on Accuracy
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A05
THE AD
Three-quarters of a million jobs lost this year. Our financial system in turmoil. And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy. No wonder his campaign's announced a plan to "turn a page on the financial crisis" by launching dishonest, dishonorable "assaults" against Barack Obama. Struggling families can't turn the page on this economy. And we can't afford another president who's this out of touch.
ANALYSIS
This Barack Obama ad uses some disingenuous sleight of hand to convey the impression that The Washington Post is calling John McCain's campaign untruthful.
The commercial is largely accurate, using newspaper excerpts to buttress the impression that the senator from Arizona was less than steady in responding to the Wall Street crisis (while showing McCain in a golf cart). As McCain first said the economy's fundamentals were sound, then ratcheted up his rhetoric and plunged into congressional bailout talks, a USA Today editorial called his conduct "erratic" and "out of touch."
The ad doesn't mention that the same editorial said, "Granted, Democrat Barack Obama also has scant experience dealing with financial crises."
A Post news article Saturday -- a facsimile of which is pictured in the ad -- did say that McCain and his GOP allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Obama's judgment, honesty and personal associations, and it quoted a McCain aide talking about turning a page on the financial crisis. But when the narrator talks about "dishonest, dishonorable assaults" against the senator from Illinois, the first two words are the Obama campaign's, not The Post's. While the on-screen graphic says " 'assault' on Obama," the narrator's words run together in a way that could easily mislead the casual viewer.
With its images of a Wall Street trading floor and an "average" family, the spot attempts to play on economic anxieties, a strong issue for Obama, and depict McCain (who, as usual, is pictured with President Bush) as disconnected from those problems. At the same time, the ad, which was leaked yesterday, tries to inoculate Obama against future McCain commercials that may play up his links to convicted businessman Antoin "Tony" Rezko and onetime terrorist William Ayers.
Video of this ad can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
LOAD-DATE: October 6, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
McCain falls in Ohio as economy steals focus
BYLINE: By Joseph Curl, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Ohio is quickly slipping from Sen. John McCain's hands, and without the state's 20 electoral votes, there is virtually no way the Republican can find his way to the White House - unless he can flip at least one big Democratic "blue" state, which is appearing ever more unlikely.
The senator from Arizona now trails by seven percentage points in Ohio, according to the latest Columbus Dispatch poll, a survey of more than 2,200 likely voters conducted over a period that included the first presidential and vice-presidential debates and Capitol Hill's response to the financial crisis. That follows a Quinnipiac University poll last week that put the margin at eight points.
The McCain campaign scaled back its efforts in Michigan, where economic issues are playing as large as they are in Ohio. Should the Republican lose Ohio, he has almost nowhere to turn to pick up the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.
"As bad as the national economy is going, Ohio's already there," said Herb Asher, a political professor at Ohio State University. "Ohio and Michigan are the worst states in terms of the economy."
But Karl Rove, a former political strategist for President Bush who twice pulled off victories in Ohio, told The Washington Times: "It is not slipping away: Watch the polls in the Buckeye State over the next couple of weeks."
"Remember, the campaign ebbs and flows," he said Sunday morning on Fox News. "What we're seeing here is a result of the focus of the American people, voters, on the economic problems that have dominated the news the last several weeks. What's happened then is a shift to Obama."
Mr. Rove noted on Fox that "this race is susceptible to rapid changes and we're likely to see, in the remaining four weeks, more changes."
Still, the Republican faces a herculean task after a perfect storm has blown into Ohio.
The 2004 battle here, where Mr. Bush won by a 0.02 percentage point to send him back to the White House, was more focused on national security than the economy. Mr. Bush won 16 percent of the black vote then, but the first black major-party nominee has pushed Mr. McCain's poll numbers among blacks into the single digits. Also in 2004, a state constitutional amendment against gay marriage drew conservatives to the polls in droves. This time, the Republican Party is less than enthused about the Senate maverick who has voted with Democrats on several major issues.
"This is about as bad as it could get for a Republican in Ohio," one party strategist said.
Another said: "These polls sound sad."
No Republican has won the presidency without taking Ohio. To win in 2008 without the state's electoral votes, Mr. McCain would have to take every other state Mr. Bush won in 2004, then flip 16 electoral votes from states that Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, took four years ago.
"While the electoral map has not expanded as much as Obama had hoped it would a month or two ago, Obama could win without Ohio, but McCain probably could not," Mr. Asher said. "If the Obama campaign can pick up Ohio, they probably would wrap up the election."
The Dispatch poll found that Mr. Obama leads by 10 points on the question of who is "more likely to bring about the change this country needs." That plays right into Mr. Obama's campaign theme of "change."
"There's a real lack of optimism in Ohio, let me put it that way," Mr. Asher said.
The Wall Street meltdown could not have come at a worse time for the Republican. Democrats already fare better among voters concerned about the economy, but Ohio is one of the most distressed states in the country. The state has lost 270,000 jobs since Mr. Bush took office and the unemployment rate was 7.2 percent in July, the sixth-highest in the nation.
What's more, Mr. McCain appears heavily outgunned in Ohio, where Democrats have built a massive operation to swing the state into their column.
Mr. Obama has 72 offices with 300 paid staff, along with thousands of volunteers. "We have an office within 42 miles of every person in Ohio," said Ohio Obama campaign spokesman Isaac Baker.
"Just as we are doing nationally, we are expanding the map in Ohio based on an unprecedented ground game," he said. "Given the scope of our ground game, our primary focus is identifying and turning out our voters."
An Ohio McCain aide said his team has just slightly more than half the offices Mr. Obama does, 40, "with staff expanding by the week."
He said of the Obama ground game that "they may bring up the fact that they have offices throughout the state in rural areas [but] they are clearly on the defensive in these areas."
The aide also said Mr. McCain is getting crossover help. "We continue to receive enthusiastic support from Democrats throughout the state."
Ohioans are already voting in droves. Early voting opened Sept. 30, and a new rule lets registered voters cast absentee ballots without having to specify why they are doing so. Thousands of voters therefore already have cast their ballots, and it will be too late even if Mr. McCain is able to rebound in the final 30 days of the campaign.
The state's electorate has changed since 2004. More than 700,000 state residents are newly registered to vote, and there are currently 10 percent more self-identified Democrats than Republicans, the Dispatch said.
"Given that a strong majority of those new registrants are Obama supporters, we feel very good about our ability to turn them out to vote over the coming month," Mr. Baker said.
With early voting already under way, the two presidential nominees are spending millions of dollars flooding TV and radio airtime with commercials. One 15-minute stretch during Saturday's Ohio State-Wisconsin football game featured four of their ads. The two campaigns have been setting up get-out-the-vote rallies and deploying surrogates across the state to urge unregistered voters to sign up before the deadline at 5 p.m. Monday.
Mr. Obama has called in the Boss: rock star Bruce Springsteen, looking to lock down the youth vote, at Ohio State University on Sunday.
Mr. McCain appeared to be courting older voters and women with an appearance Sunday by Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, 55, at a "Jewish-Americans for McCain" event in downtown Columbus. The Republican National Committee sent Co-Chairman Jo Ann Davidson and state campaign head Betty Montgomery to the "Wollybear Festival Parade" in Vermilion.
Central Ohio is a treasure trove of young voters because of three large universities, including OSU, the nation's largest.
Mr. Springsteen, whose songs are mostly about down-on-their-luck strugglers and working-class dreamers, has endorsed Mr. Obama, and his concert was filled with partisan politics as he urged thousands packed into the quad to get involved.
"After the disastrous administration of the last eight years, we need somebody, we need someone to lead us on an American reclamation project," he said to an estimated 10,000 people in the half-empty quad called the Oval.
Speaking from an open book of notes and lightly strumming his guitar, he said, "Our sacred house of dreams has been abused; it's been looted."
"Despite the terrible erosion to our standing around the world, we remain for many people a house of dreams. And 1,000 George Bushes and 1,000 Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down. They will, however, be leaving office," he said, drawing a big cheer from the crowd.
However, the Springsteen endorsement may be the kiss of death: He performed here for more than 40,000 people in support of Mr. Kerry in 2004, but the youth vote did not rise as dramatically as expected.
Mr. McCain, who has come to Ohio 21 times and will do so again Wednesday when he visits Cleveland, has no intention of bailing on Ohio, as he did Michigan. Campaign aides point out that Mr. Obama got crushed by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in March, losing 83 of 88 counties and by 10 percentage points overall as women and white blue-collar workers rejected Mr. Obama.
In addition, exit polls from the primary showed a huge number of undecideds breaking for Mrs. Clinton, with many citing her advantage in experience over the first-term senator from Illinois. The Dispatch poll found 7 percent are undecided, meaning Mr. McCain could still take the state if the undecided voters broke his way.
Mr. McCain also has worked the rural areas of Ohio, where he has strong support.
The Ohio Newspaper Poll survey in mid-September gave Mr. McCain a 55 percent to 33 percent lead over Mr. Obama in rural areas. Catholics also prefer Mr. McCain, and his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a staunch pro-life advocate, has unified support for the Republican ticket.
The McCain camp took the Boss' visit to Columbus in stride. In fact, the campaign urged young people to go to the Springsteen concert and to vote early - for Mr. McCain.
"Like the Boss, John McCain's fans are made up of voters of all political parties," said Paul Lindsay, Mr. McCain's Ohio spokesman. "We wouldn't want our supporters throughout Ohio to miss the opportunity to hear a living legend - and vote early for an American hero."
LOAD-DATE: October 6, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Associated Press State & Local Wire
October 6, 2008 Monday 8:31 PM GMT
Va. officials register new voters by the thousands
BYLINE: By DENA POTTER, Associated Press Writer
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL
The numbers in the corners of the Express Mail envelopes told the tale: $16.50, $14.65, $12.60 the price some Virginians would pay to make sure their voter registration forms made it in before Monday's deadline to register to vote in the November election.
More than 306,000 new voters already have registered in Virginia this year, and local registrars and state elections officials spent Monday taking in thousands more through the mail and in person.
They came in flip flops and in three-piece suits to the State Board of Elections office in Richmond, carrying backpacks, briefcases or expensive handbags.
While some, like 18-year-old Sneha Kondragunta and 19-year-old Toshie Ahluwalia, were there to register for the first time, others simply wanted to make sure their voter information was correct so there would be no problems when they went to the polls on Nov. 4.
Gina Burgin and a friend organized a voter registration drive and registered about 300 people in their Catholic church and in their community. Burgin stopped by the elections board office Monday to check the voting status of her mother, who recently moved to Virginia from Maryland.
"A lot of people really feel invigorated," said Burgin, a commercial real estate attorney who still is deciding between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. "I don't really care who anybody votes for, it's just nice to see everybody getting involved in the process."
Of the new voters already registered, 42 percent were under the age of 25.
Kondragunta and Ahluwalia, both Obama supporters and premed majors at Virginia Commonwealth University, downloaded the forms online and dropped them off on Monday.
Like them, Michael Paparo said he didn't want to be one of those young people who talked about politics but didn't vote.
"Most of the people I know my age, they have a lot of opinions but they're just too lazy to register to vote," said Paparo, a 24-year-old community college student.
Obama blanketed the state with e-mails Monday reminding supporters of the deadline and encouraging them to forward the message to friends, family and neighbors.
"This election is going to hinge on unprecedented voter turnout especially in Virginia," the e-mail read.
Republicans didn't have any last-minute voter drives, state GOP spokesman Gerry Scimeca said.
Final registration numbers won't be available until next week, elections board secretary Nancy Rodrigues said. Mailed registrations had to be postmarked by Monday.
"We always see an increase every four years and we forget that," she said. "But this one is running about 100,000 more than in previous years."
The state board usually is closed on the weekends, but a team fielded 4,000 calls on Saturday and another 2,000 on Sunday. On Monday, the phone rang continuously.
Rodrigues has made other changes this year to keep up with the demand.
A registration table was placed in the hallway on Friday to keep people from crowding the board's office. On Monday, 16 volunteers manned a call center, answering questions about polling places, registration status and directing those wanting to get their registration in by the deadline to their local registrar's office.
"We are in the business of democracy, so we just want to make certain that everyone who is qualified to vote has that opportunity," Rodrigues said.
As she talked, workers in a back room opened envelopes and stuffed each registration into one of 134 cubbyholes along the wall tagged with each of Virginia's localities.
"We've got 13 buckets of mail sitting at the post office," a worker opened the door and shouted.
"Thirteen buckets, that's great," she replied. "That's what it's all about."
LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire
Copyright 2008 Associated Press
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 5, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
Obama targets health care;
In Newport News, he blasts McCain insurance plan as 'bait-and-switch'
BYLINE: BILL GEROUX; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-1
An estimated 18,000 people crammed into a riverfront park yesterday to hear Sen. Barack Obama say he would fix an American health-care system that tends to work against those who need it most.
Obama, placing a new focus on health care amid the nation's economic turmoil, dismissed Sen. John McCain's plan as narrow, financially burdensome and more helpful to insurance companies than to the insured.
"I'm not saying [McCain] doesn't care what people are going through," Obama told an enthusiastic crowd at Victory Landing Park. "I'm saying he doesn't know."
Obama devoted more than 10 minutes of his speech to criticizing McCain's health-care plan, which would provide each family with a $5,000 tax credit and deregulate the insurance market in an effort to drive costs down through competition.
Obama said McCain's plan would take back its tax savings by taxing health-care benefits -- "an old Washington bait-and-switch."
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds called that "a bald-faced lie."
"John McCain will improve the tax code so that middle-class paychecks aren't used to pay government bureaucrats, but instead will pay for the access to health care Americans deserve," Bounds said.
A month before the Nov. 4 election, Obama used the Newport News event to kick off a new push on health care that will include four new television ads, four separate mailers targeted to swing-state voters, radio commercials and events in every battleground state, according to The Associated Press.
On Tuesday, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, will headline a news conference at the state Capitol to talk about how McCain's health-care plan would affect Virginia.
In Newport News yesterday, Obama said his mother died of ovarian cancer in a hospital bed while fighting with an insurance company that refused to pay for her treatments, saying she had a pre-existing condition. Health-care reform, he said, "isn't political to me -- it's personal."
Obama's rally was the third appearance of his presidential campaign in Hampton Roads, where a Times-Dispatch poll last week said the candidates are running even. The region could determine which candidate wins Virginia and its 13 electoral votes. Virginia has not backed a Democrat for president since 1964.
Hundreds of people queued up before dawn for the midday event. Volunteers moved through the crowd registering new voters ahead of Monday's 5 p.m. deadline.
"I just wanted to be part of this history," said April Hill of Newport News, who brought her son and daughter. An election with a black nominee "is a beautiful thing to see in my lifetime and my kids' lifetime," said, Hill, who is black. "In a way, it doesn't even matter if he wins. History is being made here."
Obama promised to confront drug companies about unfairly high prices and insurance companies about "discriminating" against people with cancer and other catastrophic illnesses. He said his health-care plan would help small businesses pay for costly treatments.
He said he would finance his plan by modernizing an old and ineffective health-records system and by ending some of the tax cuts for wealthy people that were pushed by President Bush.
Obama said deregulating the insurance market is as bad an idea as bank deregulation, which led to the current economic crisis.
Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior policy adviser, said McCain's plan to offer a tax credit in exchange for taxing employer-paid health benefits would be a net plus for all but the most wealthy Americans.
McCain has criticized Obama's plan as excessively costly and unworkable.
Contact Bill Geroux at (757) 498-2820 or bgeroux@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: October 8, 2008
NOTES: CAMPAIGN 2008 BREAKING NEWS 10/4/08 2:18 PM on inRich.com
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 5, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
Obama looks to hold back McCain in Southwest Va.
BYLINE: REX BOWMAN; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-1
Roy Mabry, a businessman here in Russell County, is unfettered in his optimistic belief that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama can win in Southwest Virginia.
Says the Obama-button-wearing Mabry: "I haven't seen any Republicans. I believe we done run them out of town."
Not to be out-enthused by a Democrat, retiree Glenda Short of neighboring Dickenson County, who keeps a minimum of six signs in her yard touting Arizona Sen. John McCain for president, says Republicans in the mountainous region are giddy over the prospect of helping their candidate take the state.
"Everybody wants yard signs. A gentleman stopped by the other day and said he wanted one but couldn't find any, and my husband said, 'Here, take one from our yard.' "
Southwest Virginia is conservative country, a place where President Bush swept up 60 percent of the vote in 2004, compared with 54 percent statewide.
With Virginia a battleground this year, McCain supporters are working to hang on to those votes and possibly add to them, while Obama supporters are laboring to trim the margin in hopes that a lead elsewhere in the state will put the Illinois senator over the top.
From the Cumberland Gap across the coalfields and up to the railroad city of Roanoke -- essentially the 9th Congressional District -- voters are slapping bumper stickers on their trucks, stabbing campaign signs into their lawns, dealing out campaign literature, and volunteering at local Republican and Democratic offices.
"We feel we're going to do OK there," Obama spokesman Kevin Griffis says of Southwest Virginia. "But I don't think there's any question it's a steeper climb" than in other parts of the state.
Likewise, former state Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, co-chairman of McCain's Virginia campaign, says: "We're looking to increase our numbers."
Without a doubt, Obama is the underdog here. In The Times-Dispatch Poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. and released Thursday, voters in Southwest Virginia prefer McCain to Obama, 54 percent to 39 percent, with 7 percent undecided.
In 2004, Bush won 59.5 percent of the vote against Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, in the 9th District.
Joe Lane, chairman of the political science department at Emory & Henry College in Washington County, says it's possible Obama needs to pick up only a few thousand extra votes in Southwest Virginia to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia since 1964. It's also possible, if things go well for him in Northern Virginia, that Obama may need only to hold McCain to the 60 percent that Bush received in the region.
It's "somewhat far-fetched," he says, to think Obama can beat McCain in Southwest Virginia.
To be sure, if the Democratic primary is any indicator, Obama is not the first choice among the region's Democrats: In February, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton trounced him, winning more than 80 percent of the vote in some coalfield counties even as Obama won statewide.
Another point to consider: There is no large base of black voters for Obama to draw on. Blacks account for only 1 percent to 4 percent of voters in many of the counties, and just 0.4 percent in Dickenson and Lee counties.
McCain supporters think another circumstance works to their benefit: Rep. Rick Boucher, the 9th District's popular Democratic congressman, is running unopposed for re-election. That means Boucher's formidable get-out-the-vote machine is not running full-throttle, Kilgore says.
Add to all that McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
"I got so excited when he picked her. I thought it was fantastic," says Republican Kathy Drummond of Christiansburg, who with her husband owns and runs the Inn at Hans Meadow. Drummond says she has a giant McCain sign in the lot across from her bed-and-breakfast, and another on her lawn, and she actively tries to persuade other business owners to support the Republican ticket.
Kilgore says Palin's conservative values are perfectly attuned to those of Southwest Virginia.
But Democrats, while taking solace in the notion that Obama needs only to close the gap, not win, in the district, also take heart in the fact that former Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner, running for the U.S. Senate, is on the ballot, and his widespread popularity in the district could bring votes to Obama. Other well-liked Democrats such as Boucher, Sen. Jim Webb and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine also have tried to rub some of their popularity onto Obama.
And while the primary battle against Clinton went awry in Southwest Virginia, Obama supporters say it energized the party, driving several thousand people to register to vote. The Obama campaign has seven offices in Southwest Virginia, compared with McCain's two, and organizers say they are staffed by a steady stream of volunteers.
In a bid to maintain their strength in Southwest Virginia, Republicans are trying to make the case in a new radio ad that Obama and Biden would hurt coal miners in Virginia.
Speaking to an environmentalist during a campaign event in Ohio last month, Biden said: "We're not supporting clean coal. . . . No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they're going to build them, over there. Make them clean."
Biden says he was making the point that America needs to export "clean-coal" technology to China.
Obama has received the endorsement of the United Mine Workers of America. Among those volunteering for Obama are members of the powerful union that has more than 5,000 members in the region.
As for Palin's nomination, Democrats aren't impressed.
"I think he picked her because he thought he'd get all the women who supported Hillary to vote for him," says Shirley Hall, who volunteered last month to serve fish at the UMW's annual fish fry in Castlewood. "It may work, but not as well as he thinks it will. She's a woman, but she's a bully."
To underscore the importance of the district, Obama has visited it twice, campaigning once in Bristol and once in Lebanon. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Obama's running mate, spoke at the fish fry. McCain and Palin have yet to pay a visit to Southwest Virginia, but Kilgore says it's possible they could show up before Election Day.
Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or rbowman@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: October 8, 2008
NOTES: RT-D FIRST; CAMPAIGN 2008 About this story On Sundays leading to Election Day, The Times-Dispatch will take a look at four regions of Virginia that could play key roles in the fight for the state's 13 electoral votes on Nov. 4 -- Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Northern Virginia and central Virginia.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
Obama looks to hold back McCain in Southwest Va.
BYLINE: Rex Bowman, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Oct. 5--Roy Mabry, a businessman here in Russell County, is unfettered in his optimistic belief that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama can win in Southwest Virginia.
Says the Obama-button-wearing Mabry: "I haven't seen any Republicans. I believe we done run them out of town."
Not to be out-enthused by a Democrat, retiree Glenda Short of neighboring Dickenson County, who keeps a minimum of six signs in her yard touting Arizona Sen. John McCain for president, says Republicans in the mountainous region are giddy over the prospect of helping their candidate take the state.
"Everybody wants yard signs. A gentleman stopped by the other day and said he wanted one but couldn't find any, and my husband said, 'Here, take one from our yard.'"
Southwest Virginia is conservative country, a place where President Bush swept up 60 percent of the vote in 2004, compared with 54 percent statewide.
With Virginia a battleground this year, McCain supporters are working to hang on to those votes and possibly add to them, while Obama supporters are laboring to trim the margin in hopes that a lead elsewhere in the state will put the Illinois senator over the top.
From the Cumberland Gap across the coalfields and up to the railroad city of Roanoke -- essentially the 9th Congressional District -- voters are slapping bumper stickers on their trucks, stabbing campaign signs into their lawns, dealing out campaign literature, and volunteering at local Republican and Democratic offices.
"We feel we're going to do OK there," Obama spokesman Kevin Griffis says of Southwest Virginia. "But I don't think there's any question it's a steeper climb" than in other parts of the state.
Likewise, former state Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, co-chairman of McCain's Virginia campaign, says: "We're looking to increase our numbers."
Without a doubt, Obama is the underdog here. In The Times-Dispatch Poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. and released Thursday, voters in Southwest Virginia prefer McCain to Obama, 54 percent to 39 percent, with 7 percent undecided.
In 2004, Bush won 59.5 percent of the vote against Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, in the 9th District.
Joe Lane, chairman of the political science department at Emory & Henry College in Washington County, says it's possible Obama needs to pick up only a few thousand extra votes in Southwest Virginia to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia since 1964. It's also possible, if things go well for him in Northern Virginia, that Obama may need only to hold McCain to the 60 percent that Bush received in the region.
It's "somewhat far-fetched," he says, to think Obama can beat McCain in Southwest Virginia.
To be sure, if the Democratic primary is any indicator, Obama is not the first choice among the region's Democrats: In February, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton trounced him, winning more than 80 percent of the vote in some coalfield counties even as Obama won statewide.
Another point to consider: There is no large base of black voters for Obama to draw on. Blacks account for only 1 percent to 4 percent of voters in many of the counties, and just 0.4 percent in Dickenson and Lee counties.
McCain supporters think another circumstance works to their benefit: Rep. Rick Boucher, the 9th District's popular Democratic congressman, is running unopposed for re-election. That means Boucher's formidable get-out-the-vote machine is not running full-throttle, Kilgore says.
Add to all that McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
"I got so excited when he picked her. I thought it was fantastic," says Republican Kathy Drummond of Christiansburg, who with her husband owns and runs the Inn at Hans Meadow. Drummond says she has a giant McCain sign in the lot across from her bed-and-breakfast, and another on her lawn, and she actively tries to persuade other business owners to support the Republican ticket.
Kilgore says Palin's conservative values are perfectly attuned to those of Southwest Virginia.
But Democrats, while taking solace in the notion that Obama needs only to close the gap, not win, in the district, also take heart in the fact that former Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner, running for the U.S. Senate, is on the ballot, and his widespread popularity in the district could bring votes to Obama. Other well-liked Democrats such as Boucher, Sen. Jim Webb and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine also have tried to rub some of their popularity onto Obama.
And while the primary battle against Clinton went awry in Southwest Virginia, Obama supporters say it energized the party, driving several thousand people to register to vote. The Obama campaign has seven offices in Southwest Virginia, compared with McCain's two, and organizers say they are staffed by a steady stream of volunteers.
In a bid to maintain their strength in Southwest Virginia, Republicans are trying to make the case in a new radio ad that Obama and Biden would hurt coal miners in Virginia.
Speaking to an environmentalist during a campaign event in Ohio last month, Biden said: "We're not supporting clean coal. . . . No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they're going to build them, over there. Make them clean."
Biden says he was making the point that America needs to export "clean-coal" technology to China.
Obama has received the endorsement of the United Mine Workers of America. Among those volunteering for Obama are members of the powerful union that has more than 5,000 members in the region.
As for Palin's nomination, Democrats aren't impressed.
"I think he picked her because he thought he'd get all the women who supported Hillary to vote for him," says Shirley Hall, who volunteered last month to serve fish at the UMW's annual fish fry in Castlewood. "It may work, but not as well as he thinks it will. She's a woman, but she's a bully."
To underscore the importance of the district, Obama has visited it twice, campaigning once in Bristol and once in Lebanon. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Obama's running mate, spoke at the fish fry. McCain and Palin have yet to pay a visit to Southwest Virginia, but Kilgore says it's possible they could show up before Election Day.
Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or rbowman@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 5, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081005-RV-Obama-looks-to-hold-back-McCain-in-Southwest-Va-1005
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
Obama targets health care
BYLINE: Bill Geroux, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Oct. 5--An estimated 18,000 people crammed into a riverfront park yesterday to hear Sen. Barack Obama say he would fix an American health-care system that tends to work against those who need it most.
Obama, placing a new focus on health care amid the nation's economic turmoil, dismissed Sen. John McCain's plan as narrow, financially burdensome and more helpful to insurance companies than to the insured.
"I'm not saying [McCain] doesn't care what people are going through," Obama told an enthusiastic crowd at Victory Landing Park. "I'm saying he doesn't know."
Obama devoted more than 10 minutes of his speech to criticizing McCain's health-care plan, which would provide each family with a $5,000 tax credit and deregulate the insurance market in an effort to drive costs down through competition.
Obama said McCain's plan would take back its tax savings by taxing health-care benefits -- "an old Washington bait-and-switch."
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds called that "a bald-faced lie."
"John McCain will improve the tax code so that middle-class paychecks aren't used to pay government bureaucrats, but instead will pay for the access to health care Americans deserve," Bounds said.
A month before the Nov. 4 election, Obama used the Newport News event to kick off a new push on health care that will include four new television ads, four separate mailers targeted to swing-state voters, radio commercials and events in every battleground state, according to The Associated Press.
On Tuesday, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, will headline a news conference at the state Capitol to talk about how McCain's health-care plan would affect Virginia.
In Newport News yesterday, Obama said his mother died of ovarian cancer in a hospital bed while fighting with an insurance company that refused to pay for her treatments, saying she had a pre-existing condition. Health-care reform, he said, "isn't political to me -- it's personal."
Obama's rally was the third appearance of his presidential campaign in Hampton Roads, where a Times-Dispatch poll last week said the candidates are running even. The region could determine which candidate wins Virginia and its 13 electoral votes. Virginia has not backed a Democrat for president since 1964.
Hundreds of people queued up before dawn for the midday event. Volunteers moved through the crowd registering new voters ahead of Monday's 5 p.m. deadline.
"I just wanted to be part of this history," said April Hill of Newport News, who brought her son and daughter. An election with a black nominee "is a beautiful thing to see in my lifetime and my kids' lifetime," said, Hill, who is black. "In a way, it doesn't even matter if he wins. History is being made here."
Obama promised to confront drug companies about unfairly high prices and insurance companies about "discriminating" against people with cancer and other catastrophic illnesses. He said his health-care plan would help small businesses pay for costly treatments.
He said he would finance his plan by modernizing an old and ineffective health-records system and by ending some of the tax cuts for wealthy people that were pushed by President Bush.
Obama said deregulating the insurance market is as bad an idea as bank deregulation, which led to the current economic crisis.
Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior policy adviser, said McCain's plan to offer a tax credit in exchange for taxing employer-paid health benefits would be a net plus for all but the most wealthy Americans.
McCain has criticized Obama's plan as excessively costly and unworkable.
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081005-RV-OBAMA-CAMPAIGN-20081005
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Washington Post
October 5, 2008 Sunday
Met 2 Edition
Politics at the Five-and-Dime;
Where Pennies Matter, Change Is a Powerful Idea
BYLINE: Anne Hull; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
DATELINE: FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich.
Pam Fleck has just finished vacuuming and scrubbing her mobile home into potpourri perfection when her phone rings and it's her sister, Sherry. Sherry lives over in Brighton. She drives a school bus, likes to hunt and votes Republican.
"Hi," says Fleck, an assistant manager at a Dollar General store. Her mind is on the 18-wheel delivery truck she'll have to unload at work later that night. Lifting cases of bleach take its toll at the age of 55.
Sherry is on the phone talking politics, trying one more time to talk sense into her sister. Anyone who votes for Barack Obama will not be welcome in her house -- a joke, but Fleck knows exactly where her younger sister stands. She takes a sip of coffee.
"Yeah, I'm still listening," she says.
If Obama gets in, Sherry says, he will take away everyone's guns and control what roads they can and cannot drive on.
Fleck interrupts. "We are not going to be able to afford any guns to shoot or cars to drive on the roads if things don't change, Sherry, honest to God."
With no pension and sore legs from seven-hour shifts at Dollar General, Fleck is what political pollsters classify as "working-class," "blue-collar" or a "disaffected Democrat." She is white, skipped college for motherhood and considers herself a Democrat but did not vote in the last two presidential elections because both Al Gore and John Kerry left her cold.
Fleck is exactly the kind of voter that Obama needs to win in November but has struggled to persuade. She's ready to roll the dice.
To understand why -- and to understand Obama's widening lead over McCain in a crucial state -- is to see an American worker pushed to desperation. A Wall Street bailout for $700 billion dollars? After six years at Dollar General, Fleck earns $10.35 and hour and receives an annual raise of 25 cents. She gave up Fantastic Sams and now cuts her hair over the sink in the bathroom.
Michigan is in its eighth year of a ransacked economy that has lost 322,000 manufacturing jobs in this time. The state's unemployment rate is 8.9 percent, the highest in the nation. The Pew Charitable Trust is predicting that one of every 36 homes in Michigan will fall under foreclosure by next year. The evidence is everywhere. Fleck's son tells her that poachers are stripping metal and copper from abandoned houses. The family living next to her sister lost their home, leaving behind a deep freezer full of meat that began to rot and gas the neighborhood.
Fleck grabs her pack of Misty cigarettes and goes out to sit in the warm sun of a late-breaking autumn. "You don't have to have a college degree to see what's going on," she says.
The situation calls for a leap of faith. "Maybe he'll really make a go of it," she says of Obama. "Maybe he'll say, 'Look past me and see what I do.' " Sometimes Fleck wavers, and this fragile commitment suggests the candidate's path to the White House is far from certain. "They keep saying we need a change," she says. "Well, this is definitely going to be a change. He's young and he's black."
But on most days she's sure. "I'm 55 years old. I don't like the way the world is going."
For every Obama believer swept up in a sea of "Change" bumper stickers, there are others who are tentative, whose slow gravitation is nothing short of a radical act.
* * *
The conversion is not shared across her family.
There's Sherry. "She said she doesn't like the way Obama was raised and the whole business with his church," Fleck says. "She was talking about his religion. Something about his stepbrother, who lives wherever. This is stuff that I didn't know about."
And there's the man she has been dating for the last few years, who works on prototype cars for Ford. "He's not real happy about Obama being black," Fleck says. "I said to him, 'Close your eyes and what do you see?' " But it is an impossible sell.
Until a week ago, Oakland County in suburban Detroit, where Fleck lives, was called the battleground of the battleground for the 2008 election: a must-win county in a must-win state. A mix of astonishing affluence, blue-collar workers, new immigrants from India and Japan, townships with 20 percent Jewish populations and a growing African American middle class, Oakland is known for its independent and swing voters. For that reason, McCain based his Great Lakes Regional Headquarters (Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana) in Oakland, and Obama positioned seven of his 49 state offices here.
Then came the economic apocalypse, and almost overnight the race no longer seemed close. Last week's polls showed Obama pulling ahead by nine points; McCain decided to suspend campaign operations in Michigan to focus efforts elsewhere. If Michigan is any kind of barometer for Ohio and Pennsylvania -- both crucial states in the struggling Rust Belt and replete with blue-collar workers and union retirees -- the transcendent issue of the economy could nudge tentative Democrats toward Obama. But not all.
Clayton Taylor is a 26-year-old Democrat who lives in Oakland County's working-class section of Troy. He supports abortion rights and loved Hillary Clinton but will not vote for Obama. He worries about the candidate's lack of experience and that he'll promote welfare. "He's gonna give too much away," said Thomas, outside fixing his porch. "There are a lot of people who will sit back and take it. He tries to be too 'We the People,' like he's an average Joe. He's hiding some beliefs."
From bowling alleys to bars, the economy dominates all corners of public discussion. Not the war, though Michigan has suffered 165 deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not abortion, not same-sex marriage, not national security, not terrorism. The economy.
A sign in front of a dental clinic advertises "Free Gas Card with Teeth Cleaning or X-Ray." A radio ad urges listeners to take advantage of the opportunity-rich foreclosure market -- "Order your 'Flip and Grow Rich' CD now!" Obama lands a populist punch with a TV ad showing McCain pledging his loyalty to American cars before an ominous voice-over comes on saying that the Republican senator owns 13 vehicles, including three foreign-made cars. The anxiety reaches the rolling emerald lawns up in Birmingham, where layoffs and job losses from the auto industry have started hitting executives and engineers.
But in Birmingham, there is still osso buco, and cases of new fall pinots are stocked at Papa Joe's Gourmet Market. At the Dollar General store where Fleck works, the anxiety is on naked display.
"I watch the elderly people come in and ask how much something is," Fleck says. "You see them counting their money. Here they are putting back a can of tuna fish or some cookies, and you know that's their treat. And I'll say, 'Don't worry about it, I got it.' I'm not supposed to do that. But in the back of my mind I'm thinking: Is that tuna fish what they are going to eat for the day or for the week?"
From her vantage point of Dollar General, amid the Apple Jacks and tube socks and scratchy Made in China toddler suits and cans of cling peaches and bottles of Motrin (kept up front to prevent theft), she sees it all.
"I'm not gonna lie about it," she says. "Some people come in with their food stamp cards, dressed to the hilt and gold chains hanging off them and their hair and nails done. I'm thinking: What's wrong with this picture?"
She believes immigrants should learn English. "I have no problem with someone coming to America, but don't you want to be 100 percent of it?"
Not only does she drive strictly American, she drives a Ford Taurus because a large number of its parts are manufactured in the United States.
She grudgingly supports abortion rights but thinks that "women's lib and all of these working mothers" are short-changing their children.
Fleck lives in the Flamingo Court trailer park in Farmington Hills at the south end of Oakland County. Her mobile home is spacious, decorated with curtain valances and matching towel sets and a candy dish. Before Flamingo Court, Fleck was married for 31 years. Three kids. Her husband -- her junior high school sweetheart -- worked as a millwright (an industrial maintenance mechanic) with the Big Three automakers and brought home between $1,000 and $3,000 a week with his union card.
Good money and a decent life were built on sweat, then the marriage ended. A photo album on Fleck's coffee table shows pictures from the birth of her recent grandchild, and everyone is crowded into the hospital room -- Fleck, her ex, their three grown kids, spouses and grandkids. Some things have held.
Others have not. Both of her sons are millwrights, but the work has gone overseas. They wait for the union hall to call with jobs, and they sometimes draw unemployment. Last month, Fleck's ex-husband lost his house to foreclosure.
Fleck treats her own job as if she were a mid-level executive. Her phone rings on her day off with calls from work. She tosses and turns over tasks left undone. Her conscientious habits have not gone unnoticed.
Two years ago, on her fourth year at Dollar General, the store manager came to her with a proposal.
"What would it take for you to be an assistant manager?" he asked.
"I said, '$9.25 an hour,' " Fleck says. "He said, 'We can't do that, but we can do $9 an hour.' "
She takes home $300 a week. Dollar General provides her health plan, and she pays in $42 a week for it. She drives her Taurus four miles to work, but because of gas prices, no more aimless drives. To help with expenses, she rents out a spare bedroom of her mobile home.
So when a candidate comes along and uses the word "change," she is receptive, even if his name is Barack Hussein Obama. "A part of me thinks that, and I hate to say this, that because he is black -- or partly black -- and then struggling to get to higher places in life, maybe he will say, 'I know what you are going through,' " Fleck says.
* * *
Forty-one days before the election, she wakes up and puts on make-up, has a cup of coffee and then vacuums. On the drive to work, she passes an old ranch house with a "Veterans for McCain" sign in the yard. Moving through the more upscale section of Southfield, she notices an Obama sign in front of a gated mansion and wonders who lives there. The Dollar General sits in the corner of a concrete plaza in Southfield. Fleck works the register, restocks and rides herd over the part-time employees who work the aisles of discount life. The customers are mostly working-class and African American.
Fleck was at the register recently when two female customers picked up a copy of the Globe tabloid with the headline "SARAH PALIN SEX SCANDAL: the lies, the baby secret, the raunchy photos." One of the women said to the other that if a black candidate's 17-year-old daughter were pregnant, America wouldn't be so charitable. Fleck glared at the customers but kept ringing them up. "If I said something like that in front of a black person, do you think I'd get away with it?" she later asked. If she was willing to put race aside, why couldn't they?
There is a donation jar at the register for a literacy fund and Fleck notices how even the poorest customers put a few coins in. She worries about them. "Prices have gone up more in the last six months than the entire six years I've worked there, " she says. "I'm so glad my kids are grown." She takes her lunch hour in her car. Walking out to the scrappy parking lot, she sits in her Taurus with a bag of chips and uses the time to think. "Once in a great while I'll go to Subway," she says.
On the night a truck brings a delivery, she arrives at 8 and doesn't stop moving till past midnight. "No matter if you're male or female, 20 or 60, it has to get done," she says.
The next morning, she's at home when her store manager calls. The manager suspects an employee stole a bottle of green tea while unloading the truck because she found the empty bottle. The conversation about the missing green tea goes on for 10 minutes. Finally she hangs up and shakes her head. "As manager, she is accountable for everything," Fleck says. "I feel for her."
Recently, and somewhat tentatively, she asked her manager whom she was voting for.
"Uh-oh, I don't want to start a war here," the manager said, according to Fleck. "Who are you voting for?"
Obama, Fleck said.
So am I, the manager said.
Her drive between work and home takes her past the campaign signs again.
In the ranch house with the "Veterans for McCain" sign is Donnalee Eirschele, age 57, a former public school custodian on disability: "I'm a conservative. I don't like Obama's ideas. He's going to run our economy into the ground. Obama is more for giving money to poor people, like the ones on welfare."
At the modern split-level house with the Obama sign: Derek Forney, age 40, an account manager for a benefits company. "What Bush and his party have failed to deliver on is inclusiveness," says Forney, an evangelical Christian who voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004. "I'm very interested in bringing people together. I have a young daughter. I don't want her to grow up in a divided country."
* * *
On her day off, Fleck visits her month-old granddaughter. "Hello!" she says, dropping her purse as she walks through the door of her daughter's house and rushes for the baby girl named Ireland.
"Here you go, Mom," says Nicole Patterson, 29, handing over the infant. Fleck comes to life: smiling and cooing and miles away from the missing bottle of green tea. Her 31-year-old son, Kelly, is also here. The union called him with a three-day job starting the next day. "All jobs are good," he says. "They just don't last long."
The big dilemma is that Nicole's company just told her that she can't come back part-time after the baby -- it has to be full-time. "The way Michigan is now, my boss is leaning on me," Nicole says. Her husband's job as an auto-body technician at Chrysler has slowed to nothing. Kelly gives his familiar refrain: "Stop outsourcing jobs." He won't vote in November, disillusioned by the vote-count fiasco in Florida in 2000.
Nicole, a Democrat, is leaning toward Obama. "When he speaks, it's almost inspirational and promising."
Kelly laughs. "As long as he doesn't pull some ghetto-fabulous [expletive], like they did in Detroit," he says, referring to Kwame Kilpatrick, the former Detroit mayor brought down by scandal this year.
Nicole tells her mother that Aunt Sherry has been working on her, too. "Aunt Sherry said, 'You gotta drop with the Democrat and Republican stuff.' And I said, 'You are gonna have to drop the race and Muslim thing.' "
"She is very passionate," Fleck says of her sister. "She has strong feelings. You hear so many things, it's hard to believe what's true."
Nicole lifts up Ireland and kisses her. "I guess my big downfall is that I'm overly optimistic," she says. "I have to be. Look what's in front of me. If you don't have hope that things will get better, what's the point? God, if you don't have hope, you don't have nothin'."
The day is warm and they go outside to sit in the back yard. A deer statue stands in the grass. A grill. A garage full of tools. Fleck tells her kids that Dollar General wants her to move to another store. Nicole wishes her mother could stay home and watch the baby, but Fleck explains that she can't go without health insurance.
"I hate her job," she says. "They take advantage of her."
Fleck's voice is soft. "I put my heart and soul into it."
She drives home, past campaign signs and foreclosure signs. "One way or another, something is going to work out for us," she says.
Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 5, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Michael Williamson -- The Washington Post; Pam Fleck, assistant manager of a Dollar General store in Southfield, Mich., is leaning toward Barack Obama as the working-class candidate.
IMAGE; Photos By Michael Williamson -- The Washington Post
IMAGE; Clayton Taylor of Troy says he is a Hillary Clinton fan who doesn't trust Barack Obama and will vote for John McCain.
IMAGE; Andre Ventura is a conservative Republican who wears his distaste for Obama on his sleeve, and displays it in his yard.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 5, 2008 Sunday
Met 1 Edition
Obama, McCain Saturating Va. With TV Ads
BYLINE: Tim Craig; Washington Post Staff Writer
Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are spending nearly $300,000 a day on local television advertising in Virginia, according to an independent analyst, with Obama far outspending McCain as they gear up for the final month of the presidential campaign.
With Democrats and Republicans agreeing that the contest is essentially tied in Virginia, the campaign for the commonwealth's 13 electoral votes is accelerating. The rivals also are blanketing the state with direct mail and other ads.
Obama, a senator from Illinois, has targeted Virginia relentlessly, believing it will be almost impossible for McCain, a senator from Arizona, to win the White House on Nov. 4 if he loses the historically conservative state.
Obama's strategy appears to be paying off, officials in both parties say. On Wednesday, McCain campaign officials announced that they are diverting more resources to Virginia, which last voted for a Democratic presidential nominee in 1964.
"We feel good, and we are doubling the size of the field staff and offices in Virginia . . . and that is a reflection of the energy and support we have seen in Virginia," said Mike DuHaime, McCain's political director.
But the closeness of the race in a state President Bush won by 262,000 votes four years ago alarms some Virginia Republicans, who concede that Obama is running a strong campaign.
Several recent polls show varying leads, ranging from a 9-percentage-point Obama advantage to a 3-point McCain edge.
"I think the seesaw is going to continue, and I just hope we are on top of the seesaw when the election rolls around," said Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick (Prince William), chairman of the Virginia Republican Party.
Obama, Democrats say, has built one of the most aggressive campaigns in modern Virginia history and plans to use his organization on Election Day to try to spark a record turnout.
Yesterday, with a Navy ship as a backdrop, Obama drew thousands to a rally in Newport News on the banks of the James River, his second large event in Virginia in a week. His running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), was scheduled to make appearances today in Roanoke and Henrico County in suburban Richmond but canceled because of a serious illness in his family.
There are now about 60 Democratic offices open across the state, including Senate candidate Mark R. Warner's. They are staffed by thousands of volunteers and about 200 paid workers.
"This is absolutely the largest, most comprehensive, most aggressive presidential campaign I have ever seen in Virginia," Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee said.
Obama's efforts in Virginia are apparent on the airwaves.
From mid-June until last week, Obama spent about $9 million on TV ads in Virginia, compared with McCain's $5 million.
Obama is now spending about $250,000 a day on local network TV in Virginia, compared with McCain's $30,000, according to Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks ad buys.
The TV advertising imbalance is being partially offset by the Republican National Committee, which began a $33,000-a-day media buy in areas of Virginia outside the Washington market, Tracey said.
McCain spent heavily on local network TV in Northern Virginia earlier in the year, but he has pulled advertising from those stations and is bolstering his presence in Hampton Roads.
"Obviously, I think they had to make a resource decision," Tracey said. "He has to make sure he has resources to match Obama at the end of the campaign. . . . But it's a gamble, because Northern Virginia is where races are won and lost."
Trey Walker, McCain's mid-Atlantic regional director, said the decision was strategic and not about resources. The campaign has shifted its Northern Virginia ads to local cable stations to help target specific voter blocs. McCain and Obama also are on the air on national network TV.
"We are at parity, saturation-wise in Northern Virginia, with the Obama campaign," Walker said. "We are using a tactic we need to turn out voters on Election Day. Clearly, when you are doing cable television buys, you can target certain demographics you are unable to do on local" television.
McCain's campaign also is opening a dozen new offices and will be increasing its paid staff in the state to 50, DuHaime said.
Although Obama and Biden have appeared jointly or separately in the state almost a dozen times since mid-summer, McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, have appeared only once, at a rally last month in Fairfax City.
McCain is instead relying on surrogates and local party committees to drum up enthusiasm for his campaign. Joe McCain, the candidate's brother, headlined a "Veterans for McCain" rally yesterday in Loudoun County.
Obama surrogates also are blanketing the state.
Democrats are emboldened by several recent polls. Obama has opened up a 20-point lead in Northern Virginia, according to polls by Washington Post-ABC News, CNN/TIME and Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc.
In the 2005 race for governor and the 2006 Senate campaign, Democrats Timothy M. Kaine and James Webb, respectively, were propelled to victory after they racked up 20-point margins in Northern Virginia.
Some party officials say Obama is starting to make inroads in rural parts of the state.
"For years, it has been socially and culturally unacceptable for white working-class males to vote for a Democrat, and I am hearing a lot of them say, 'I'm voting for Obama,' and that shows me there is some movement," said Democratic strategist Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, who specializes in targeting rural voters.
But Dick Leggitt, a GOP strategist and senior adviser to Republican Senate candidate James S. Gilmore III, said the McCain campaign is working hard to turn out the party base through phone calls, mailings and targeted radio spots. The historical surge for GOP candidates from rural areas and military communities in Hampton Roads will be enough to pull out a victory, he said.
Still, some Virginia Republicans say McCain and Palin need to start campaigning in the state.
"I know McCain sleeps here a lot," said Frederick, referring to McCain's condominium in Arlington County. "We need him to come back and campaign here, because the Republican grass roots are hungry to have him."
Other Virginia Republicans say McCain, who is trailing in national polls, doesn't have the luxury to spend time in a state the GOP has carried for decades.
"McCain advisers feel if he isn't going to win Virginia, he probably isn't going to win the election anyway," said James E. Hyland, chairman of the Fairfax County Republican Party.
LOAD-DATE: October 5, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 4, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
bailout bill is a done deal
By Richard Simon and Nicole Gaouette
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON
The House of Representatives approved the $700 billion Wall Street bailout Friday, setting in motion the biggest government intervention in the financial system since the Great Depression . President Bush quickly signed the bill.
Treasury Department officials vowed to move swiftly to use sweeping new powers to try to stabilize markets and ease deepening fears about the economy.
The vote took place amid fears that the financial turmoil was paralyzing sources of credit vital to businesses, governments and consumers.
The House's 263-171 vote was a sharp reversal from Monday, when the chamber rejected a similar bill and the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 777 points. Lawmakers from both parties described Friday's vote, coming a month before they face re-election, as among the most gut-wrenching of their careers.
"I may lose my race over this," said Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., who voted for the bill Friday after opposing it earlier in the week. "But that's OK, because I believe in my heart I'm doing the right thing."
Proponents sought to portray the measure as important to ordinary Americans even as some made clear their contempt for Wall Street's recklessness.
"Those greedy pigs on Wall Street don't deserve help from hardworking Americans," said Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., another vote convert. "But allowing them to fail will cause so many other businesses ... to lose access to credit, lose business."
Before Monday's vote, Congress had been deluged with calls and e-mails from constituents opposed to the bailout plan, but Monday's stark market drop was greeted by public outrage and led to four days of heavy lobbying for the proposal. Senate leaders added tax breaks and other sweeteners to the measure and passed it Wednesday. On Friday, the bill won 58 new yes votes in the House, clinching passage.
"We have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country," Bush said.
Nonetheless, markets closed down Friday .
The 451-page Emergency Economic Stabilization Act grants the Treasury secretary unprecedented authority to buy as much as $700 billion of troubled assets from ailing financial institutions in an effort to stave off more bankruptcies and provide cash for new loans to ease the credit market freeze.
Lawmakers demanded numerous changes to the Treasury Department's original three-page proposal, including limits on how much company executives can be paid if their companies sell assets to the government. Congress also added an oversight board to supervise the program, raised the cap on bank deposits insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to $250,000 from $100,000, and required steps to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.
Sweeteners added an estimated $150 billion in costs, including one provision that shields 24 million taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax. The new law also has tax relief provisions for disaster victims; research and development tax credits; a hybrid car tax credit; and tax breaks for teachers who spend their own money on school supplies.
Many House members said they were reluctant to help an unpopular financial sector and to approve new federal spending but felt they had no choice.
"Nobody in East Tennessee hates the fact more than me that I'm going to vote yes," said Rep. Zack Wamp, a Republican who came to favor the bill after helping defeat it in Monday's 228-205 vote. "Things are really bad, and we don't have any choice."
"I am just as angry and frustrated as many of those who have called my office," said Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., who voted yes both times. "But I voted for it because my constituents' 401(k)s, their life savings, and the ability to take out car, home and student loans hang in the balance."
Preparing for the political fallout, Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., has begun airing a TV ad in his district in which he declares: "I don't like this rescue plan any more than you do. ... But I'm not going to stand by and let this crisis undermine our economy and damage the financial future of everyone in America."
Overall, Democrats in the House favored the bill 172-63 in Friday's vote; Republicans voted 108-91 against it.
In Monday's vote, Democrats voted 140-95 in favor; Republicans voted 133-65 against. Between the two votes, 33 Democrats switched their votes to yes, while one Democrat changed his vote from yes to no. Twenty-five Republicans switched to yes, and one other Republican voted yes Friday after missing Monday's vote.
The presidential candidates - Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain - took part in a broad-based effort to lobby lawmakers.
To demonstrate their concern for "Main Street," the House approved a separate measure to extend unemployment benefits. That bill needs Senate approval.
Despite the political shift in favor of the bill, opponents remained steadfast. They included a coalition of liberals and conservatives.
"This is not a time for panic," said Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. "Why do we need to give $700 billion to one man to play hedge-fund god from the gilded offices of the United States Treasury?"
Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., said that despite improvements, the bill focused "too much on Wall Street."
With lawmakers now heading home for the fall campaign, Congress will wait until next year to consider tougher regulations on financial institutions. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said lawmakers next year will "do some serious surgery on the financial structure."
HOW THEY VOTED
The 263-171 vote was a stark reversal from Monday, when the House rejected a similar bill and the Dow plummeted 777 points. The vote on Monday was 205-228. In all, 91 Republicans joined 172 Democrats to support the measure, while 108 Republicans and 63 Democrats voted "no."
Local representatives remained opposed. Page 11 WHAT changed? Lawmakers demanded changes to the original proposal, including:
n limits on how much company executives can be paid if their companies sell assets to the government
n the creation of an oversight board to supervise the program
n raising the cap on bank deposits insured by the FDIC to $250,000 from $100,000
n steps to help homeowners avoid foreclosure
n the following sweeteners: tax relief provisions for disaster victims; research and development tax credits; a hybrid car tax credit; and tax breaks for teachers who spend their own money on school supplies HOW wall street REACTED The Dow Jones industrials dropped 157 points. cost breakdown
President Bush signed the bill into law that provides up to $700 billion to the secretary of the Treasury. The cost breakdown:
n\$250 billion to the Treasury immediately
n\an additional $100 billion certified by the president
n\$350 billion more certified by the president, subject to congressional disapproval
- The Associated Press inside
What are they going to do with the money? Page 11
The plan extends tax breaks . Page 11
LOAD-DATE: October 4, 2008
GRAPHIC: U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., left, with U.S. house speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-Conn. Susan Walsh | the associated press The legislation passed Friday set in motion the biggest government intervention in the financial system since the Great Depression. Traders Stephen Holden, left, and Bradley Bailey watch on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as the bailout bill passes in the House.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
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The Washington Post
October 4, 2008 Saturday
Met 2 Edition
McCain Plans Fiercer Strategy Against Obama
BYLINE: Michael D. Shear; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said.
With just a month to go until Election Day, McCain's team has decided that its emphasis on the senator's biography as a war hero, experienced lawmaker and straight-talking maverick is insufficient to close a growing gap with Obama. The Arizonan's campaign is also eager to move the conversation away from the economy, an issue that strongly favors Obama and has helped him to a lead in many recent polls.
"We're going to get a little tougher," a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here," said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Being so aggressive has risks for McCain if it angers swing voters, who often say they are looking for candidates who offer a positive message about what they will do. That could be especially true this year, when frustration with Washington politics is acute and a desire for specifics on how to fix the economy and fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is strong.
Robert Gibbs, a top Obama adviser, dismissed the new McCain strategy. "This isn't 1988," he said. "I don't think the country is going to be distracted by the trivial." He added that Obama will continue to focus on the economy, saying that Americans will remain concerned about the country's economic troubles even as the Wall Street crisis eases somewhat.
Moments after the House of Representatives approved a bailout package for Wall Street on Friday afternoon, the McCain campaign released a television ad that challenges Obama's honesty and asks, "Who is Barack Obama?" The ad alleges that "Senator Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes. Ninety-four times. He's not truthful on taxes." The charge that Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes has been called misleading by independent fact-checkers, who have noted that the majority of those votes were on nonbinding budget resolutions.
A senior campaign official called the ad "just the beginning" of commercials that will "strike the new tone" in the campaign's final days. The official said the "aggressive tone" will center on the question of "whether this guy is ready to be president."
McCain's only positive commercial, called "Original Mavericks," has largely been taken off the air, according to Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ads.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's performance at Thursday night's debate embodied the new approach, as she used every opportunity to question Obama's honesty and fitness to serve as president. At one point she said, "Barack Obama voted against funding troops [in Iraq] after promising that he would not do so."
Palin kept up the attack yesterday, saying in an interview on Fox News that Obama is "reckless" and that some of what he has said, "in my world, disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander in chief."
McCain hinted Thursday that a change is imminent, perhaps as soon as next week's debate. Asked at a Colorado town hall, "When are you going to take the gloves off?" the candidate grinned and replied, "How about Tuesday night?"
Yesterday in Pueblo, Colo., McCain made clear that he intends to press Obama on a variety of familiar GOP themes during the debate, as he accused the Democrat once again of getting ready to raise taxes and increase government spending.
"I guarantee you, you're going to learn a lot about who's the liberal and who's the conservative and who wants to raise your taxes and who wants to lower them," McCain said.
A senior aide said the campaign will wait until after Tuesday's debate to decide how and when to release new commercials, adding that McCain and his surrogates will continue to cast Obama as a big spender, a high taxer and someone who talks about working across the aisle but doesn't deliver.
Two other top Republicans said the new ads are likely to hammer the senator from Illinois on his connections to convicted Chicago developer Antoin "Tony" Rezko and former radical William Ayres, whom the McCain campaign regularly calls a domestic terrorist because of his acts of violence against the U.S. government in the 1960s.
The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. appears to be off limits after McCain condemned the North Carolina Republican Party in April for an ad that linked Obama to his former pastor, saying, "Unfortunately, all I can do is, in as visible a way as possible, disassociate myself from that kind of campaigning."
McCain advisers said the new approach is in part a reaction to Obama, whose rhetoric on the stump and in commercials has also become far harsher and more aggressive.
They noted that Obama has run television commercials for months linking McCain to lobbyists and hinting at a lack of personal ethics -- an allegation that particularly rankles McCain, aides said.
Campaigning in Abington, Pa., yesterday, Obama continued to focus on the economy, even as he lashed out at McCain.
"He's now going around saying, 'I'm going to crack down on Wall Street' . . . but the truth is he's been saying 'I'm all for deregulation' for 26 years," Obama said. "He hasn't been getting tough on CEOs. He hasn't been getting tough on Wall Street. . . . Suddenly a crisis comes and the polls change, and suddenly he's out there talking like Jesse Jackson."
Obama highlighted a new report showing a reduction of more than 159,000 jobs last month, and he linked the bad economic news to McCain and Palin.
"Governor Palin said to Joe Biden that our plan to get our economy out of the ditch was somehow a job-killing plan; that's what she said," Obama told a crowd of thousands. "I wonder if she turned on the news this morning. . . . When Senator McCain and his running mate talk about job killing, that's something they know a thing or two about, because the policies they've supported and are supporting are killing jobs in America every single day."
McCain issued a statement yesterday saying the bailout bill "is not perfect, and it is an outrage that it's even necessary. But we must stop the damage to our economy done by corrupt and incompetent practices on Wall Street and in Washington."
Speaking in Pueblo just as the House was finishing deliberations on the package, McCain blamed fellow lawmakers for the failure to adequately regulate the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
"It was the Democrats and some Republicans in the Congress who pushed back and did not allow those reforms to take place, and that's a major reason we are in the trouble we are in today," he said. "Those members of Congress ought to be held accountable on November 4th as well."
Before the bailout crisis, aides said, McCain was succeeding in focusing attention on Obama's record and character. Now, they say, he must return to those subjects.
"We are looking for a very aggressive last 30 days," said Greg Strimple, one of McCain's top advisers. "We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans."
Staff writers Michael Abramowitz and Perry Bacon Jr. contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 4, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By John Moore -- Getty Images; "You're going to learn a lot" in next week's debate, Sen. John McCain promised supporters in Pueblo, Colo.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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Bush signs Wall Street bailout;
But markets distracted by other woes plunge
BYLINE: By Sean Lengell and S.A. Miller, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Congress on Friday gave Wall Street the financial lifeline it was seeking and President Bush immediately signed it into law, as the House reversed course and approved a $700 billion bailout package in the wake of markets roiled by the failure of storied investment firms and major banks.
The House passed the measure 263-171, following the Senate's lead in passing a reformulated bill that added tax breaks, an increase in the federal deposit insurance limit and other "sweeteners" designed to increase support among Republicans.
Converts, both Democratic and Republican, said they listened to taxpayers' concerns and tried to ensure their market investments and mortgages were protected, as well as providing some middle-class tax relief.
Rep. Donna F. Edwards, a Maryland Democrat who on Monday voted against the first bailout package, said conversations she had this week with constituents, as well as a Thursday telephone call from Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, persuaded her to switch her vote to "Yes" Friday.
"I am convinced today that even left with this imperfect product, the choice is this or nothing," she said. "For me, doing nothing was never an option."
Democrats, who have made the struggling economy a central theme this election season, loudly praised the legislation, adding that it was only the first step in a long overdue overhaul of Wall Street regulations and oversight that will come with an Obama presidency and a Democratic Congress.
"The message Democrats will continue to pound is how off-track this economy is, and how we can't risk four more years of Bush economic policies that were rubber-stamped by Republicans in Congress," said Doug Thornell, spokesman with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the fundraising arm of House Democrats.
The measure was supported by 172 Democrats and 91 Republicans, while 108 Republicans and 63 Democrats opposed it. There were 58 more votes for the measure than an earlier version that failed on Monday.
Thirty-three Democrats and 25 Republicans switched their votes from "No" to "Yes." One Democrat - Jim McDermott of Washington - switched in the other direction, voting against the bill Friday after supporting it Monday, but that was offset by Rep. Jerry Weller of Illinois, who voted "Yes" on Friday after not voting Monday.
Mr. Obama and his Republican presidential rival Sen. John McCain, who both voted for the package Wednesday, praised the House for its action Friday in separate statements.
"This rescue bill is not perfect, and it is an outrage that it's even necessary. But we must stop the damage to our economy done by corrupt and incompetent practices on Wall Street and in Washington," Mr. McCain said.
Mr. Obama said that the bill "was absolutely necessary to prevent an economic catastrophe that could have cost millions of jobs and forced businesses across the country into bankruptcy."
But U.S. stocks fell heavily Friday, despite rising immediately after the House vote, as investors remained nervous about a global credit squeeze and the weak economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 157.47, or 1.50 percent, to close at 10,325.38, while the Nasdaq Composite Index slid 29.33 points, or 1.48 percent, to 1,947.39. Standard & Poor's 500 Index shed 15.05, or 1.35 percent, to 1,099.23.
And a dismal jobs report Friday showed 159,000 people added to the ranks of the unemployed.
"Nine straight months of job losses is a painful verdict on the [Bush administration's] economic mismanagement of the last eight years," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said before Friday's vote, echoing the partisan tone from a speech she was criticized for giving prior to Monday's failed House vote.
The core of the Wall Street rescue package, proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. just two weeks ago, will give the Treasury up to $700 billion to buy up now-toxic mortgages and mortgage-related securities that are clogging the books of the nation's banks and financial firms.
Until those assets are addressed, Mr. Paulson has argued, banks will not lend, consumers and businesses will be unable to borrow, and the aftershocks will be felt in pensions, savings plans, paychecks and payrolls across the country.
President Bush signed the legislation into law less than two hours after it passed the House. He then walked off the White House grounds for an unscheduled trip to the Treasury Building, which is next door, to thank Mr. Paulson and department employees.
"I know that your people are exhausted in there," Mr. Bush said to Mr. Paulson, who nodded. "Sometimes people in government never get thanked enough."
House leaders from both party's pressed their members throughout the week to get the extra votes needed to pass the bill since its initial failure Monday, with phone calls to members and meetings to shore up existing support and switch votes from lawmakers once leery of angering voters disgusted by the idea of bailing out Wall Street.
The financial markets began to sour in mid-September with the news that the government would not bail out the venerable investment bank Lehman Brothers and that Merrill Lynch had been forced to sell itself to Bank of America.
Days later, when insurance giant American International Group (AIG) only avoided collapse with a $85 billion Treasury loan, stock market losses began to plummet, prompting the Federal Reserve to inject $180 billion into the global market.
Mr. Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke then met with Mr. Bush and pushed for the $700 billion rescue plan as an option of last resort.
Lawmakers said they improved the original three-page Paulson blueprint, adding several layers of oversight, some relief for homeowners struggling to meet mortgage payments, strict limits on executive pay for those who participate in the plan, and an ownership stake for the federal government in the companies being helped.
When the U.S. housing market recovers and the mortgages gain in value, the government stands to recoup at least some of the money spent.
The deal also includes a tax-cut package that will eliminate certain business and energy-related taxes and the alternative minimum tax, which would have hit about 22 million Americans with a tax increase of about $2,000.
The violent swings in the market and an ease in constituent opposition to the rescue plan in recent days also helped win over leery House members from both parties.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Maryland Democrat who voted against the bailout Monday, said he changed his mind and supported the measure Friday because of his constituents' growing despair over the credit crunch, including students who can't get loans and business with canceled credit lines.
"What is happening on Wall Street is bleeding into every aspect of our society, including the neighborhoods I represent," said the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
He added that a phone call from Mr. Obama further persuaded him to support the measure.
On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Joe Knollenberg of Michigan was among the Republicans to change their votes. He did so despite having one of the toughest re-election races in Congress and facing almost certain attack for making the switch.
"This was the right vote to take. It was a tough vote," the nine-term Republican told reporters as he left the House floor. "You're damned if you do and damned if you don't."
He said additions to the bill, including relief from the alternative minimum income tax and an increase to $250,000 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. guarantee and mounting support among constituents prompted the switch.
But many fiscally conservative House members on both sides of the aisle remained opposed to the bailout, saying that it was an irresponsible use of taxpayer money.
"I really believe this is $700 billion down the rat hole," said Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi, a leading member of the conservative Blue Dog Democratic coalition.
Mr. Taylor said that he feared Friday's vote would make it more difficult for Congress to reject future industry bailouts.
"This is just the first in a line of groups that are going to want a bailout, because it will be like, 'We know where to go to get easy money - we'll go to Congress,' " he said.
The nation's focus on the struggling economy already has helped Democratic campaigns from Mr. Obama's bid for the White House to congressional races, party officials say.
"The bailout debate in Congress had " sharpened people's focus on how serious the economic situation is in this country," said Mr. Thornell of the DCCC.
House Democrats added that Friday's bailout package was only the first step in ensuring that the national economy has lasting stability, promising additional market reforms when Congress returns to work in early 2009.
"Now to the next part," said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat and a key architect of the bipartisan measure. "It would be highly irresponsible, a betrayal of our oath, if we were to stop here."
House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican, said that "though not a perfect bill, I was proud to lend my hand to the process in a way to help ensure taxpayer protections were included, and unrelated special-interest giveaways were left out."
LOAD-DATE: October 5, 2008
GRAPHIC: CELEBRANTS: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shared a signed copy of the Wall Street bailout plan Friday with Rep. Barney Frank (left), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Others pleased with their work are Reps. James E. Clyburn (second from left), Steny H. Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel. [Photograph by Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times]
Marisa Harrilchak holds a ceremonial box containing House Resolution 1424, the Wall Street bailout, for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to sign Friday. Pelosi deputy communications director Nadeam El Shami (background) also waits for Mrs. Pelosi to show up. [Photograph by Rodney Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times]
THANKS: President Bush, after signing the Wall Street bailout bill Friday, congratulates Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., the key author of the $700 billion package, which had failed to pass the House on the first try Monday. [Photograph by United Press International]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 3, 2008 Friday
Metro Edition
CANDIDATES DEBATE CANCELED TV DEBATE IN CHARLOTTESVILLE
SECTION: VIRGINIA; Campaign Notebook; Pg. B4
The televised debate between 5th Congressional District candidates Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Rocky Mount, and Tom Perriello has been put on hold.
Goode contacted the debate's host, WVIR NBC 29 in Charlottesville, on Tuesday to say he wouldn't participate in the debate, WVIR News Director Neal Bennett said.
"He said he had something else to do that night," Bennett said. "He said he never agreed to the date."
Scheduling of the debate had gone through Goode's campaign officials, but now the station is working directly with Goode and the Perriello campaign to reschedule the debate, Bennett said.
Goode could not be reached for comment Thursday.
In a statement released Thursday by Perriello, the Democrat urged Goode to explain what other event could be more important.
"The truth is Congressman Goode is just running away from his terrible record on the economy, gas prices and so many other problems facing middle-class families," Perriello said. "This is cowardice, not leadership."
The postponement of the TV debate is one of many difficulties the Perriello campaign says they've had with the congressman.
Goode has yet to commit to two other debates, one at Hampden-Sydney College and another hosted by the American Legion in Danville tentatively scheduled for Oct. 28, said Jessica Barba, communications director for the Perriello campaign.
The two candidates, however, have debated twice -- in Charlottesville and in Danville.
-- Janelle Rucker
Mark Warner shows he has bipartisan support
Former Gov. Mark Warner made another effort Thursday to showcase the bipartisan support he has built for his U.S. Senate campaign, unveiling a list of 600 locally elected officials of all political stripes who have endorsed the Democratic nominee.
More than half of local officials in the "Virginians for Warner" coalition are Republicans or independents, Warner's campaign said. Warner has tried to position himself as a political centrist in his race against Republican Jim Gilmore, who preceded Warner as governor. The two rivals are competing for the seat held by Republican John Warner, who is retiring after three decades in the Senate. The two Warners are not related.
The Senate candidates will meet tonight in Roanoke for a televised debate hosted by WSLS (Channel 10). The 7 p.m. debate will take place at the new Taubman Museum of Art.
Warner held news conferences in Richmond, Harrisonburg and Roanoke to promote the endorsements, and was joined by former Republican state legislators and business leaders. The Republicans who headed the General Assembly's budget committees during Warner's gubernatorial term -- former Sen. John Chichester of Northumberland County and former Del. Vince Callahan of Fairfax County -- were among those voicing support for Warner.
Don Upson, who served as the state's first secretary of technology in the Gilmore administration, appeared at the Richmond news conference to support Warner. Upson praised Warner's consensus-building approach to tackling problems and said, "There's never been such a need for leadership.
"He's not looking for someone to bash or blame about where we are and why we aren't where we need to be," Upson said. "He's always there talking about solutions and how can we get something done."
Warner noted that many of the supporters who joined him in Richmond are backing Republican John McCain for president, while he supports Democrat Barack Obama.
"Regardless of who the next president is, I'm going to work with the next president to make sure that strong center stands up and we put our country's interests first," Warner said.
Warner appeared in Roanoke at the Claude Moore Education Complex on Henry Street, where he was introduced by David Carson, a Republican who is also chairman of the Roanoke School Board.
"To me, he's a guy that has a good track record. I appreciate what he did," Carson said of Warner in an interview after the event. "In a nutshell, he seems like a guy who's gotten stuff done, and that's what we need."
The list of endorsements can be found at markwarner2008.com/endorsements.
-- Michael Sluss
Bluegrass star sings Obama's praises in radio ad
Democrat Barack Obama has a famous, twangy voice speaking for him in Virginia's mountains: bluegrass music legend Ralph Stanley.
The Grammy-winning pioneer of the high lonesome sound of Appalachian music is featured in a new radio ad for Obama's presidential campaign playing across Southwest Virginia, Stanley's home.
Obama is fiercely contesting the region covered mostly by the mountainous, coal mining, rural and largely white 9th Congressional District.
-- Associated Press
LOAD-DATE: October 4, 2008
GRAPHIC: Photo 1. Virgil Goode. 2. Tom Perriello. 3. Jim Gilmore. 4. Mark Warner
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 3, 2008 Friday
Metro Edition
OBAMA'S NUMBERS WORK FOR VIRGINIANS
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B9
For too long, the pollsters and the pundits have told us that Virginia doesn't matter when it comes to deciding the outcome of the presidential election. But this year is different. Our votes could mean the difference between setting a new course for our nation and continuing the destructive policies and politics of the last eight years.
In an effort to win our votes, John McCain is running a television advertisement that claims Barack Obama will raise your taxes. He's counting on you not to check the facts or to learn for yourself the real differences between these two candidates. I've spent the last two decades in public office, and if there's one thing I've learned in that time it's that Virginians are smart and don't believe everything they see on television.
The truth is if you make less than $250,000 a year, Obama will give your family a tax cut of $1,000 under his "Making Work Pay" proposal. His plan would cut taxes for middle-class Virginia families more than three times as much as John McCain's.
Under the Obama plan, 4.1 million workers representing 95 percent of Virginia families will receive a tax cut. Seniors making less than $50,000 a year would pay no federal income taxes at all. Small business would no longer pay capital gains taxes.
McCain's plan doesn't provide relief for more than 100 million Americans but does provide a $4 billion tax break for big oil companies such as ExxonMobil.
It's a real difference between these two candidates. Obama believes that middle-class America is the engine that drives our economy, while McCain still supports the tired notion of trickle-down economics. Those policies didn't work for the last eight years under George W. Bush, but McCain wants to continue that approach.
What's even more frightening for America's future is that McCain doesn't just want to continue the failed policies of George W. Bush; he wants to continue the failed politics as well. His false ad on taxes is a perfect example.
According to the independent FactCheck.org: "McCain misrepresents Obama's tax proposals again. And again, and again."
Obama knows that we have to change both the policies in Washington and the politics. It's the only way we're going to make a real difference for Virginia families and tackle the challenges of our generation and pass on a strong and prosperous nation to the next.
That's why I'm proud to support Obama for president. He believes that we can build a strong economy, an energy-independent future, ensure a quality education for every child and reform our broken health-care system -- not by dividing us, but by uniting us. These challenges aren't Democratic or Republican and the solutions aren't partisan, either.
I don't think McCain is out to get you; he just doesn't get it. He recently told an audience that you have to make $5 million a year to be rich. His top economic adviser said that Americans are a "nation of whiners" suffering a "mental recession." So it didn't come as a surprise when McCain couldn't respond to a question about how many houses he owns.
The challenges we'll face together in the coming years demand a leader who gets it -- gets that we won't solve them by continuing the policies and politics of the last administration. This year, your vote for president matters more than ever. With Obama we will have an economic policy that works for Virginia families and politics that appeal to the best in us.
Creigh Deeds
Deeds, of Bath County, has served in the Virginian General Assemble for nearly two decades and now represents the 25th Senate District.
LOAD-DATE: October 4, 2008
GRAPHIC: Photo Barack Obama looks toward a large American flag hanging at an outside event at John Tyler Community College in Chester on Aug. 21.
DOCUMENT-TYPE: COMMENTARY
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 3, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
McCain gives up efforts to sway Michigan voters
The New York Times
DENVER
Sen. John McCain is giving up on his efforts to win the state of Michigan, his campaign said Thursday, in the latest sign that the faltering economy has reshaped the presidential race and cost McCain support in crucial states.
The McCain campaign had spent heavily on TV commercials in Michigan, and the Republican nominee had campaigned in the hopes that he could appeal to enough blue-collar voters, so-called Reagan Democrats and independent voters, to bring the state back into the GOP column in November.
The campaign will pull out of Michigan and redirect its resources to other swing states where it is felt that McCain has a better chance.
The McCain campaign has spent nearly $8 million on ads in Michigan, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a company that monitors political advertising, and now it has no more plans to advertise there, campaign officials said. McCain canceled a visit he had planned to make to Michigan next week.
The McCain campaign's withdrawal will free the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, to redirect resources from Michigan to several states that President Bush won in 2004 but where recent polls show him gaining ground - including Virginia, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio.
LOAD-DATE: October 3, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 3, 2008 Friday
Met 2 Edition
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A10
OBAMA'S JUDGMENT QUESTIONED
Ad Points to Wright, Rezko, Ayers
The Rev. Wright for the Supreme Court?
A group of conservative legal activists doesn't exactly suggest that, but it is releasing an ad featuring Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and two other controversial figures from Barack Obama's life as part of an effort to bring attention to the issue of Supreme Court nominees and raise questions about the candidate's judgment.
The new ad is paid for by the Judicial Confirmation Network, a group closely associated with the successful confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
The ad says that the next president could reshape the court because of anticipated departures over the next four years. But instead of talking about the views of either Obama or John McCain, the ad focuses on Obama's ties to Wright, his outspoken former pastor; Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a disgraced real estate developer and campaign fundraiser; and William Ayers, a 1960s radical who is now a professor.
The connection?
"We don't know who Barack Obama would choose, but we know this," the ad says. "He chose as one of his first financial backers a slumlord now convicted on 16 counts of corruption. Obama chose as an associate a man who helped to bomb the Pentagon and said he 'didn't do enough.' And Obama chose as his pastor a man who has blamed America for the 9/11 attacks."
Wendy Long, the general counsel for the Judicial Confirmation Network, said the message showed that Obama associated with those men while voting against confirmation of Roberts and Alito.
"I tried to tie it to the court," Long said. "I hope that worked. It's certainly about the court."
She said it is intended to be just the first phase of a campaign to show the "huge, huge choice" for voters on the issue, because McCain and Obama would make such different appointments to the Supreme Court and other federal courts.
She said the ad would run nationally on Fox, tied to the court's resumption of oral arguments on Monday, and in the battleground states of Ohio and Michigan.
-- Robert Barnes
EVENT CALLED NON-POLITICAL
Biden to Speak as Son Heads to Iraq
Joe Biden will speak Friday in Dover, Del., at the deployment ceremony for his son Beau, 39, who is headed to Iraq as part of a Delaware National Guard unit.
Aides to the Democratic vice presidential candidate said that the event was not political and that he was speaking as a father and senator. Beau Biden, who is Delaware's attorney general, is a member of the Army's Judge Advocate General Corps. In a news release, National Guard officials said he may serve as an army prosecutor. He will go to Fort Bliss, Tex., for training before heading to Iraq.
Biden's Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was accused of politicizing the service of her son Track, 18, last month when she spoke at his deployment ceremony, and Biden aides have tried to avoid a similar charge. At the same time, Beau Biden introduced his father at the Democratic National Convention, and his father occasionally mentions his son's service, unlike John McCain, who has avoided discussing the experiences of his son Jimmy, 19, a Marine who returned from a tour in Iraq in February.
"I'm proud, but I have to admit to you, I wish he wasn't going, I wish he wasn't going," the senator told "Entertainment Tonight" in an interview this week. Biden's wife, Jill, said in the same interview that "there is a lot of pride" but that "there's not a morning that I open my eyes that I don't say a prayer that he comes home safely."
-- Perry Bacon Jr.
QUICK POLLING
High Marks for All After Debate
Immediate reaction polls should be taken with a load of salt, but two of the best showed three winners in Thursday night's vice presidential showdown, with both candidates gaining ground and almost all those tuning in saying that moderator Gwen Ifill treated the rivals "fairly."
In a poll by CBS News of uncommitted voters and one by CNN of all debate watchers, more said Joe Biden was the winner, but Sarah Palin scored important points.
The overwhelming focus was on the Alaska governor, and more than eight in 10 voters in the CNN poll said she exceeded their expectations. Before the debate, 43 percent of uncommitted voters said Palin is knowledgeable about important issues; after the debate, that jumped to 66 percent. At the same time, both before and after, majorities of those polled by CNN said she lacks the qualifications to be president.
Biden, too, was widely seen as doing better than predicted, and he, like Palin, saw his favorability ratings go up in both polls.
But the bottom line is how many voters will be swayed by the event, and here, the preliminary evidence is not much: 71 percent of uncommitted voters in the CBS poll said they remained so after the debate. Among those who said they had shifted, slightly more said they tilted Democratic, 18 percent to 10 percent.
-- Jon Cohen
LOAD-DATE: October 3, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; By Robert Miller -- The Washington Post; Joe Biden hugged son Beau at the Democratic National Convention. Beau Biden is about to be deployed to Iraq.
IMAGE
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 3, 2008 Friday
Suburban Edition
Obama Spot Is Heavy on Supposition
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A08
THE AD
John McCain: I can't wait to introduce her to the big spenders in Washington.
Narrator: Big spenders . . . like John McCain. McCain's tax plan means another 3 trillion in debt. His plan to privatize Social Security -- another trillion. Tax credits sent to insurance companies, yet another trillion. So as we borrow from China to fund his spending spree, ask yourself: Can we afford John McCain?
ANALYSIS
This Barack Obama ad is an attempt to capitalize on the public's anger and unease about the current financial crisis and deflect attention from McCain's charges that the Illinois Democrat would boost taxes and federal spending.
The allegation that McCain's tax proposals would add $3 trillion to the national debt is attributed to a group created by the left-leaning Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. The Obama camp attributes the cost estimate on McCain's Social Security plan to a paper by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, written by none other than Jason Furman, now Obama's economics adviser.
The ad is misleading on that point. The Furman paper analyzes President Bush's unpopular 2005 proposal to allow Social Security recipients to invest part of their savings in the stock market. McCain has not made a detailed proposal. The Obama camp defends the commercial by saying that McCain told the Wall Street Journal in March that he would like to revamp Social Security "along the lines of what President Bush proposed."
Also left unmentioned is that Obama does not promise to eliminate the federal budget deficit during his first term, only to reduce it. So both candidates would continue to borrow heavily to finance current spending.
The ad also manages to remind viewers that the Arizona Republican's running mate is Sarah Palin, whose disapproval ratings have been rising in recent polls. The spot opens with a shot of McCain with the Alaska governor, even though the words the viewer hears -- about introducing "her" to the profligate Beltway spenders -- were spoken with Cindy McCain at her husband's side, a scene that briefly appears after the Palin shot.
-- Howard Kurtz
Video of this ad can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
LOAD-DATE: October 3, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
Alaskan delivers folksy message
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: PAGE ONE; ANALYSIS; A01
From her opening greeting to her Democratic opponent in the vice-presidential debate - "Hey, can I call you Joe?" - to her pledge to deliver "straight talk" to voters, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin never looked out of her depth.
After a month when she was at the peaks of stardom at the Republican National Convention and the depths of late-night comedic ridicule, Mrs. Palin said the face-off with Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. was her chance to cut through the clutter and speak as plainly as she could.
"I like being able to answer these tough questions without the filter, even, of the mainstream media kind of telling viewers what they've just heard. I'd rather be able to just speak to the American people like we just did," she said.
She was stern, conversational and occasionally off-topic, but not flustered. She peppered the 90-minute debate at Washington University in St. Louis with colloquialisms such as "you betcha" and "darn right," and was never shy to confirm that she's been part of the national campaign for only five weeks, ever since she was Sen. John McCain's surprise pick for running mate.
"It's so obvious I'm a Washington outsider and someone just not used to the way you guys operate," she told Mr. Biden.
That's not to say she kept up with her opponent, whose three decades in the Senate helped him frame long, complex answers steeped in Washington minutiae of legislative back-and-forth, amendments and votes on final passage.
He clearly controlled the debate when it came to foreign affairs and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and held his own in detailing the record of Sen. Barack Obama.
At times he was lecturing, though never overbearing, and he even appeared on the verge of tears when he talked about raising his children after the death of his first wife.
"The notion that somehow, because I'm a man, I don't know what it's like to raise two kids alone, I don't know what it's like to have a child you're not sure is going to - is going to make it - I understand," he said.
Still, he had his own goofs, including placing the executive branch of the government in Article I of the Constitution, which defines the legislature while Article II lays out the executive.
But Mr. Biden was the known quantity; Mrs. Palin is not, and she was clearly on the hot seat. Moderator Gwen Ifill seemed determined to test her, and Mrs. Palin repeatedly found herself defending specifics about her own record, her stances versus Mr. McCain's, and her knowledge of Washington.
She was at her most poised when talking about energy and climate change - issues with which she's had extensive experience in Alaska. She was at her weakest when talking about foreign policy, including stumbling over the commander of the NATO force in Afghanistan, mislabeling Army Gen. David D. McKiernan as "McClennan."
Mrs. Palin has become a Rorschach test for voters, in particular suburban women and former supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton who both campaigns acknowledge are key to victory in November.
Some women love her, arguing she's the everywoman who has excelled. Others say she's a poor imitation of Mrs. Clinton and express anger at Mr. McCain for selecting her.
But the folks she was addressing Thursday night were those in the middle, the average voters she talked about, and to, repeatedly. She mentioned "hockey moms" within the first 10 minutes of the debate and said she measures the country's health by parents at their children's sporting events.
"You know, I think a good barometer here, as we try to figure out has this been a good time or a bad time in America's economy is go to a kids' soccer game on Saturday and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, " How are you feeling about the economy?"
Mrs. Clinton, in a statement issued after the debate, said Mrs. Palin only offered "more of the same policies of the Bush administration" and praised Mr. Biden as someone who "understands both the economic stresses here at home and the strategic challenges in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world."
Whatever her effect on voters at large, her effect on Mr. McCain's own campaign is clear: Crowds have surged, and so has fundraising. The Republican National Committee Thursday night announced it collected $66 million in September, a one-month record.
The question is how she will play in those places where Mrs. Clinton exposed vulnerabilities in Mr. Obama.
Mrs. Clinton won the Democratic primaries in the key big states that will be decisive in November, including Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan and Ohio.
Mr. McCain's campaign on Thursday announced he was pulling his campaign commercials and most staff out of Michigan to focus more on Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
And Pennsylvania is exactly where they hope Mrs. Palin can appeal to the Clinton voters who have been lukewarm at best to Mr. Obama.
"Our polling will show us taking a considerable portion of Democrats outside the Philadelphia media market. For us, Democrats in Pennsylvania are going to be a key focus for our campaign," said McCain strategist Greg Strimple.
But national public polling suggests Mrs. Palin's effect has worn off.
The Gallup Poll, which showed Mr. McCain winning married women by 15 percentage points in early September, just after Mrs. Palin's convention speech, now shows him about tied with Mr. Obama.
Meanwhile, Mr. McCain trails badly among unmarried women and men, and leads among married men.
LOAD-DATE: October 3, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 2, 2008 Thursday
Final Edition
Obama, McCain vying for votes in coal country
BYLINE: OLYMPIA MEOLA; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-4
Rep. Rick Boucher yesterday vouched for Sen. Barack Obama's record on coal, hoping to minimize damage from his running mate's recent comment on coal plants.
Boucher, D-9th, said Obama's been one of the strongest friends of coal in Congress.
In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Boucher defended remarks that the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, made after an Ohio campaign appearance, in which he was shown in a video telling a protester: "No coal plants here in America."
Boucher said no one should give credibility to "some chitchat that takes place in a rope line."
The Southwest Virginia congressman said Biden "was talking about how dirty Chinese coal plants are" and that developing clean-coal technology and selling it to China is a key part of combating global warming.
The Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin pounced on Biden's Ohio remarks and took out a radio ad saying that the Democrats' position would cost Virginia thousands of jobs.
Virginians can expect to see and hear more from the McCain-Palin campaign as they ramp up ground efforts here, McCain's National Political Director Mike DuHaime told reporters in a conference call yesterday.
Meanwhile, the McCain-Palin campaign said yesterday that it is opening 12 more offices across the state, bringing the total to about 20, and are beefing up field staff.
The Obama campaign has opened approximately 45 offices across the state.
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign yesterday rolled out a 30-second TV advertisement here and in other states, featuring a coal miner of 31 years who supports Obama.
Obama and Biden have made trips to Southwest Virginia in a bid to cut GOP margins in the area.
Del. Christopher B. Saxman, R-Staunton, who is a co-chairman of McCain's Virginia campaign, said that he doesn't see how the Democrats can express support for coal "with a straight face."
"That's a significant part of the backbone of the economy in Virginia," he said, "and it is the economy in Southwest Virginia."
* Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or omeola@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: October 4, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
Obama, McCain vying for votes in coal country
BYLINE: Olympia Meola, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Oct. 2--Rep. Rick Boucher yesterday vouched for Sen. Barack Obama's record on coal, hoping to minimize damage from his running mate's recent comment on coal plants.
Boucher, D-9th, said Obama's been one of the strongest friends of coal in Congress.
In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Boucher defended remarks that the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, made after an Ohio campaign appearance, in which he was shown in a video telling a protester: "No coal plants here in America."
Boucher said no one should give credibility to "some chitchat that takes place in a rope line."
The Southwest Virginia congressman said Biden "was talking about how dirty Chinese coal plants are" and that developing clean-coal technology and selling it to China is a key part of combating global warming.
The Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin pounced on Biden's Ohio remarks and took out a radio ad saying that the Democrats' position would cost Virginia thousands of jobs.
Virginians can expect to see and hear more from the McCain-Palin campaign as they ramp up ground efforts here, McCain's National Political Director Mike DuHaime told reporters in a conference call yesterday.
Meanwhile, the McCain-Palin campaign said yesterday that it is opening 12 more offices across the state, bringing the total to about 20, and are beefing up field staff.
The Obama campaign has opened approximately 45 offices across the state.
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign yesterday rolled out a 30-second TV advertisement here and in other states, featuring a coal miner of 31 years who supports Obama.
Obama and Biden have made trips to Southwest Virginia in a bid to cut GOP margins in the area.
Del. Christopher B. Saxman, R-Staunton, who is a co-chairman of McCain's Virginia campaign, said that he doesn't see how the Democrats can express support for coal "with a straight face."
"That's a significant part of the backbone of the economy in Virginia," he said, "and it is the economy in Southwest Virginia."
Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or omeola@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081002-RV-Obama-McCain-vying-for-votes-in-coal-country-1002
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
October 2, 2008 Thursday
Metro Edition
OBAMA UNVEILS AD TOUTING COAL SUPPORT
BYLINE: By Michael Sluss mike.sluss@roanoke.com (804) 697-1585
SECTION: VIRGINIA; Pg. B3
With the presidential race heating up in Virginia, coal is becoming a major issue in the fight between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.
Obama's campaign unveiled a new television ad Wednesday touting the Democrat's support for so-called "clean coal" technologies, pushing back at Republican charges that Obama and running mate Joe Biden would hurt an industry that is critical to the economy of far Southwest Virginia.
U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, also talked up the Democratic ticket's support for coal Wednesday and accused Republican John McCain's camp of airing "misleading" ads on the issue.
The emphasis on coal further underscores how hard the two candidates are fighting for Virginia's 13 electoral votes. McCain's campaign announced Wednesday that it has opened 12 new field offices in the state, including one in Blacksburg. Obama has more than 40 field offices throughout the state. Most polls indicate the race is close in Virginia.
Obama, who already has made two campaign trips to far Southwest Virginia, is making another appeal to the region in an ad airing in Virginia and other targeted states. The 30-second spot features a coal miner and notes Obama's support for funding for carbon capture and storage technologies that could make coal burning cleaner.
Obama also has called for public-private partnerships to build five "first of a kind" coal-fired power plants that would have carbon capture and storage capability. And he has co-sponsored legislation in the U.S. Senate to create incentives for converting coal to liquid fuel.
"Senator Obama is the stronger friend of coal and the one most likely to ensure coal's long-term future," said Boucher, who was an early supporter of Obama's campaign.
Boucher cited Obama's support for a 2005 energy bill providing $1.8 billion in tax credits for clean coal technology and said McCain "voted against that vital coal measure." McCain has said he voted against the bill because it awarded generous tax breaks to oil companies.
McCain's campaign last week began airing a radio ad that seized on comments Biden made during a hurried exchange with a voter in Ohio. During the encounter, which was captured on video, Biden was asked why he and Obama support clean coal.
Biden's immediate response was: "We're not supporting clean coal." He went on to say that China will "burn 300 years worth of bad coal" without clean coal technology.
"No coal plants here in America," Biden told the voter. "Build them if they're going to build them over there, make them clean, because they're killing you."
McCain surrogates, including former Gov. and U.S. Sen. George Allen and former state Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, have said that Biden's comments display a hostile attitude toward the coal industry. Del. Chris Saxman, R-Staunton, a Virginia co-chairman of McCain's campaign, also questioned the Democratic ticket's commitment during a conference call Wednesday.
"I don't see how they can say with a straight face that they're going to be in support of clean coal technology and clean coal resources in America, especially in Virginia," Saxman said.
Boucher cautioned against making too much of "some chitchat that takes place in a rope line."
He said Biden "was talking about how dirty Chinese coal plants are and how the only way we're ever going to get those cleaned up ... is if we develop here in the United States clean coal technologies and then sell them for use in China."
Boucher said Biden affirmed his support for coal during a visit last month to the United Mine Workers of America picnic in Castlewood.
"It was a very successful appearance during which he spent a long time talking about the need for the use of clean coal technology," Boucher said. "He talked about his heritage, where he grew up in a coal-mining community in Scranton, Pa. ... I think he touched a very responsive chord."
LOAD-DATE: October 3, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
Obama unveils ad touting coal support: Democrats try to refute charges that they don't support an industry vital to far Southwest Virginia.
BYLINE: Michael Sluss, The Roanoke Times, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Oct. 2--RICHMOND -- With the presidential race heating up in Virginia, coal is becoming a major issue in the fight between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.
Obama's campaign unveiled a new television ad Wednesday touting the Democrat's support for so-called "clean coal" technologies, pushing back at Republican charges that Obama and running mate Joe Biden would hurt an industry that is critical to the economy of far Southwest Virginia.
U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, also talked up the Democratic ticket's support for coal Wednesday and accused Republican John McCain's camp of airing "misleading" ads on the issue.
The emphasis on coal further underscores how hard the two candidates are fighting for Virginia's 13 electoral votes. McCain's campaign announced Wednesday that it has opened 12 new field offices in the state, including one in Blacksburg. Obama has more than 40 field offices throughout the state. Most polls indicate the race is close in Virginia.
Obama, who already has made two campaign trips to far Southwest Virginia, is making another appeal to the region in an ad airing in Virginia and other targeted states. The 30-second spot features a coal miner and notes Obama's support for funding for carbon capture and storage technologies that could make coal burning cleaner.
Obama also has called for public-private partnerships to build five "first of a kind" coal-fired power plants that would have carbon capture and storage capability. And he has co-sponsored legislation in the U.S. Senate to create incentives for converting coal to liquid fuel.
"Senator Obama is the stronger friend of coal and the one most likely to ensure coal's long-term future," said Boucher, who was an early supporter of Obama's campaign.
Boucher cited Obama's support for a 2005 energy bill providing $1.8 billion in tax credits for clean coal technology and said McCain "voted against that vital coal measure." McCain has said he voted against the bill because it awarded generous tax breaks to oil companies.
McCain's campaign last week began airing a radio ad that seized on comments Biden made during a hurried exchange with a voter in Ohio. During the encounter, which was captured on video, Biden was asked why he and Obama support clean coal.
Biden's immediate response was: "We're not supporting clean coal." He went on to say that China will "burn 300 years worth of bad coal" without clean coal technology.
"No coal plants here in America," Biden told the voter. "Build them if they're going to build them over there, make them clean, because they're killing you."
McCain surrogates, including former Gov. and U.S. Sen. George Allen and former state Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, have said that Biden's comments display a hostile attitude toward the coal industry. Del. Chris Saxman, R-Staunton, a Virginia co-chairman of McCain's campaign, also questioned the Democratic ticket's commitment during a conference call Wednesday.
"I don't see how they can say with a straight face that they're going to be in support of clean coal technology and clean coal resources in America, especially in Virginia," Saxman said.
Boucher cautioned against making too much of "some chitchat that takes place in a rope line."
He said Biden "was talking about how dirty Chinese coal plants are and how the only way we're ever going to get those cleaned up ... is if we develop here in the United States clean coal technologies and then sell them for use in China."
Boucher said Biden affirmed his support for coal during a visit last month to the United Mine Workers of America picnic in Castlewood.
"It was a very successful appearance during which he spent a long time talking about the need for the use of clean coal technology," Boucher said. "He talked about his heritage, where he grew up in a coal-mining community in Scranton, Pa. ... I think he touched a very responsive chord."
To see more of The Roanoke Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.roanoke.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, The Roanoke Times, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2008
ACC-NO: 20081002-RO-Obama-unveils-ad-touting-coal-support-1002
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 2, 2008 Thursday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Palins' assets estimated at $1 million-plus
By Sharon Theimer and Brett J. Blackledge
The Associated Press
WASILLA, Alaska
Sarah Palin and her husband have pieced together a uniquely Alaskan income that reached comfortably into six figures even before she became governor, capitalizing on valuable fishing rights, a series of land deals and a patchwork of other ventures to build an above- average lifestyle.
Add up the couple's 2007 income and the estimated value of their property and investments and they appear to be worth at least $1.2 million. That would make the Palins, like Democratic vice presidential rival Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, well-off but not nearly as wealthy as multimillionaire couples John and Cindy McCain and, to a lesser extent, Barack and Michelle Obama.
A more complete picture will come when Palin outlines her finances in federal paperwork .
The Palins' total income last year was split almost evenly between Sarah Palin and her husband . Sarah Palin's salary as governor was $125,000; Todd Palin took in $46,790 as a part-time oil production operator for BP Alaska in Prudhoe Bay, plus $46,265 in commercial fishing income and $10,500 in Iron Dog snowmachine race winnings.
These figures do not include nearly $17,000 in per diem payments Palin received for 312 nights spent in her own home since she was elected governor; she also has received $43,490 to cover travel costs for her husband and children.
what they have
The Palins' assets include a half-million-dollar home on a lake with a float-plane at the dock, two vacation retreats, commercial-fishing rights worth an estimated $50,000 or more and an income last year of at least $230,000. The median income of Alaskans is $64,333 and is $50,740 for Americans in 2007, according to the Census Bureau.
LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 2, 2008 Thursday
Regional Edition
For Marylanders, a Drafthouse to Call Their Own
BYLINE: Lavanya Ramanathan
Among the special attractions at the Arlington Cinema 'N' Drafthouse over the years has been the stand-up of Janeane Garofalo and "Daily Show" co-creator Lizz Winstead, and the regular showings of "Office Space" and "The Big Lebowski." And let's not forget the Monday-night screenings of "Grindhouse" and "300" for a dollar, with nachos and beer delivered to you tableside.
Beginning this month, a trip to Virginia won't be necessary for any of that. Residents of MoCo can hit the new Montgomery Cinema & Drafthouse in Wheaton. Why this is exciting: When it opens sometime in the next week, the theater will book the same comedians from its Arlington location, host the same Dude Fests and $1 movies and free sporting-event screenings, and even bring in the same quaint office-chair-like seating that makes the Arlington theater so not like a movie theater.
Plans for the new cinema were announced in February, with renovations of a pre-existing movie theater space beginning this July. It's off Veirs Mill Road and little hard to spot behind a Bally Total Fitness at Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton, but it's just across the street from the Wheaton Metro station, and we timed a drive from Rockville at just about 10 minutes.
"People may get off work at 5, but they're not getting home till 7," says the theater's president, Greg Godbout, when asked why the complex was planned for Montgomery County. "They're not going to go back to the city [for entertainment]."
Walk in the door to a glossy new lobby area with tables and a long bar serving 20 brands of beer, including Stella Artois, Guinness, Flying Dog and "probably like eight you've never heard of," Godbout says. There is no concession stand, because the theater offers table service, but you can still get popcorn (you just have to get it off the menu).
Virginians, take note: The MoCo drafthouse is, at 32,000 square feet, bigger than the sister location (there are six theaters, with two equipped for live entertainment) and will offer the first-run movies that Arlington doesn't. And there is, finally, a huge parking lot -- fans of the original location, you know what we're talking about.
Already slated in coming weeks: Redskins games, the "Maryland Grindhouse" triple feature of raunch-horror flicks, Dude Fest (a screening of "The Big Lebowski" and a comedy show featuring Arj Barker, who opened the Flight of the Conchords show at Lisner Auditorium this May).
As is typical of new venues, the opening date is a little fuzzy, but the theater is scheduled to open in the next week; check the theater's Web site for updates.
Movies will be $9.25 for first-run films, matinees are $7.75; comedy shows will run $15-$25; live children's entertainment will be about $8. The theater is for those 21 and older; younger patrons are allowed only if accompanied by a parent or guardian. For details about the theater and information about the opening, visit http://www.montgomerydrafthouse.com or 301-949-9200.
SAVE THE DATE
FOR FAMILIES Halloween, the Musical? Um, sort of. Post-Classical Ensemble's "scary music" performance at Strathmore at the end of the month is a concert -- for children! -- in the spirit of Halloween, with moody lighting, a giant snake puppet and more to set the scene. "Carnival of Creatures" includes such works as Henry Cowell's "The Banshee" (famed for its wailing sound and for its technical experimentation) and "Tiger"; Silvestre Revueltas's "Sensemayá," based on a chant for killing a snake; and Saint-Saëns's joyous "The Carnival of the Animals," in which instruments depict the sounds creatures make. Recommended for children 6 and up. $18-$35. Oct. 26. 1 p.m. Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. 301-581-5100 or get tickets at http://www.strathmore.org.
THE SCENE Flying Karamazov Brothers More than 30 years after first juggling at a California Renaissance fair, the brothers (who are not really siblings) have created a full-on circus act that has been seen by audiences around the world; the juggling is still part of the show, but these brothers Karamazov also dance, make music, bang on things and perform comedy. They land at the intimate Barns at Wolf Trap later this month for two nights. $35. Oct. 21 and 22. 8 o'clock both nights. Barns at Wolf Trap, 1635 Trap Rd., Vienna. 877-965-3872.
THE DISTRICT
Today
FILM The Experimental and the Extraordinary, at the Hirshhorn The museum kicks off its fall film series (with movies by and about artists) tonight with "In the Loop," featuring nine of the top video art works from the international LOOP festival of media art in Barcelona. (In two weeks, watch for "Seven Easy Pieces," which traces Marina Abramovic's efforts to restage seven of her renowned performance works at the Guggenheim Museum.) Free. Tonight at 8. Series continues Oct. 16, 22 and Nov. 13, also at 8. Hirshhorn Museum, Ring Auditorium, lower level, Seventh Street and Independence Avenue SW. 202-633-3030.
ON STAGE "The Road to Mecca" Athol Fugard's 1988 drama, being staged by Studio Theatre after a recent successful run of Fugard's "My Children! My Africa!," tells the story of an ostracized elderly woman whose many cement figurines outside her home -- her "Mecca" -- raise red flags for the Afrikaner community in which she lives. She calls on a young friend, a teacher, to help her endure the community's attacks. The show was just extended. $34-$61. Wednesday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m., also Saturdays and Sundays at 2. (Extra show next Tuesday at 8.) Through Oct. 19. 1501 14th St. NW. 202-332-3300.
Tomorrow
CLOSING End of the Season for Jazz in the National Gallery's Sculpture Garden Bemoan the close of this summer institution tomorrow as the art museum's series goes out with a bang: The last concerts tomorrow are part of the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, which brings in charismatic, local-by-way-of-France harmonica performer Frédéric Yonnet. He plays two shows, at 5:30 and 7:15 p.m. Free. Seventh Street and Constitution Avenue NW. 202-289-3360.
THE SCENE Carte Blanche: The French-Electro Happy Hour The Alliance Francaise's happy hour, with food, drink, an iPod DJ component and a chance to actually put your high school French to work, returns to Hillwood Museum and Gardens in upper Northwest tomorrow. The event is themed to celebrate French film and art this time, so expect to see French films screened. $12; $10 in advance (Hillwood and Alliance members, $8-$10). 6:30-9:30 p.m. 4155 Linnean Ave. To RSVP, call 202-234-7911, Ext. 16 or 31. For more details, go to http://www.francedc.org.
MARYLAND
Today
FILM "O Pai, O" This Brazilian offering, one of the last movies in the 19th annual Latin American Film Festival, is a music-filled comedy about the impoverished but spirited town of Pelourinho on the last day of Carnival; the soundtrack features songs by Caetano Veloso. The film festival continues through Tuesday. In Portuguese with English subtitles. $6-$10. Today at 9:20 and Sunday at 9:15 p.m. AFI Silver Theatre, 8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring. 301-495-6720.
Tomorrow
ON STAGE Paula Poundstone Did you know the comic and author "covered" the 1992 presidential election for "The Tonight Show"? So you can be sure that the wry Poundstone will be delving into Obama, McCain and the media when she performs two shows tomorrow night at Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis. Poundstone shows have a tendency to sell out, and there are a limited number of tickets left for these two, so get them in advance. $37.50. 7 and 10 p.m. 33 West St., Annapolis. Get tickets at http://tickets.ramsheadonstage.com.
Saturday
THE SCENE Small Press Expo: Convergence of the Comics-Heads The Small Press Expo is a two-day showcase of comics artists, would-be graphic novelists and publishers from across the country. Artists including Richard Thompson ("Cul de Sac") and Tom Tomorrow ("This Modern World") will head up panels, meet-and-greet and just maybe offer advice (bring your portfolios, people). The expo starts Saturday. $8 for one day, $15 for both days (tickets sold at the door only). 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday; noon-6 p.m. Sunday. Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, 5701 Marinelli Rd. For information, call 301-537-4615 or for a full schedule, visit http://www.spxpo.com. For an expo primer, check out Comic Riffs' interviews with Thompson and Ted Rall on The Post's comics blog, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs.
NORTHERN VIRGINIA
Today
ON STAGE Second City: Time to "Deface the Nation" Shows by the touring arm of the famed Second City comedy troupe are consistently packed in Washington (Second City is the training ground that launched Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Steve Carell and about a million other stars). But a politics-themed show on the night of the vice presidential debate? Consider it a boon if you're looking to go out: Tickets remain for the Arlington Cinema 'N' Drafthouse run of "Deface the Nation," Second City's sketch show skewering today's politicians. And if you're staying home to watch Sarah Palin and Joe Biden face off? You can still catch the show tomorrow or Saturday. $25-$32. 7 and 9:45 each night through Saturday. 2903 Columbia Pike, Arlington. 703-486-2345 or get tickets in advance at http://www.arlingtondrafthouse.com.
Tomorrow
CONCERT The Bird and the Bee The Los Angeles duo of Greg Kurstin and Inara George channel Broadcast, Stereolab and just a touch of Miles Davis on their debut record, released on Blue Note Records, because, well, the pair's love of jazz is evident. The duo had a dance hit last year with a song about a guy who just won't commit (the song title's unprintable here), and they play Jammin' Java tomorrow night. As a singer with a gorgeous lilting voice, George really has to be seen to be believed. $17. 8 p.m. 227 E. Maple Ave., Vienna. 703-255-1566.
Saturday
THE SCENE Girls' Day Out: "How Not to Look Old" Charla Krupp's best-selling book breaks down the ways in which women, particularly those over 40, can update their looks in ways small (new, hip eyeglasses) and large (uh, "injectables"?). "It's not about looking good to get a guy," says Krupp -- a columnist at More and former beauty director at Glamour -- whom we chatted with by phone from New York. "It's about looking good when you want to reenter the job market, when you want to keep your job." To help Washington women get themselves updated, Krupp is visiting Tysons Corner Center to talk about her tips, particularly how women can pick out jeans for their weekends as well as casual Fridays. And don't worry, she's not going to try to "update you" into skinny jeans: She says those don't work "unless you are Kate Moss." The talk is also a "beau-tea" party with mini-mani beauty bars and light hors d'oeuvres and tea. Best part: It's free, but reservations are recommended. The event is Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. Macy's Court, Tysons Corner Center, 1961 Chain Bridge Rd., McLean. To RSVP, call 703-893-9401 or e-mail bethany.zorn@macerich.com
LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 2, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
Obama, McCain Stand United In Pressing Hard for Rescue
BYLINE: Jonathan Weisman; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A14
After months on the campaign trail and countless missed votes, Barack Obama and John McCain returned to the Capitol last night as just two of 99 senators voting on a massive Wall Street rescue plan, but their forceful advocacy for the controversial measure may help push it into law.
Obama delivered an unflinching defense yesterday of a bill that could not muster majority support in the House just two days earlier. Four hours later, both men cast their votes for its passage.
Voters now face the choice between two major-party candidates who stand arm-in-arm on one of the most far-reaching and controversial economic interventions since the Depression.
"There's no real separation between Wall Street and Main Street," Obama said from the obscured corner desk of a junior senator. "There's only the road we're traveling on as Americans, and we will rise or fall on that journey as one nation and as one people. I know that many Americans are feeling anxiety right now, about their jobs, about their homes, about their life savings. But I also know this: that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. We always have."
McCain declined to speak on the measure, leaving his Arlington condominium after 7 p.m. to make a belated, 8:20 entrance when most other senators had already reached the floor.
Over the past weeks, as the investment banking industry collapsed and financial institutions were shuttered one by one, McCain and Obama had taken turns blaming and mocking each other. McCain accused Obama of standing on the sidelines and shirking a leadership role. Obama personally confronted McCain at a tense White House meeting. Obama's campaign charged that McCain's effort last week to insert himself into the negotiations was a political stunt that proved more disruptive than constructive.
But since Monday's House rejection and the 778-point, one-day plunge of the Dow Jones industrial average, such recriminations have diminished. "There will be time to punish those who set this fire," Obama said from the Senate floor. "But now is not the time. . . . Right now, we want to put out that fire."
Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), an influential House conservative, said last night he had spoken to McCain three times since Saturday. After voting no on Monday, he said, "I'm inclined to hold my nose and vote yes." Obama, in a brief Capitol interview, said he too had spoken to "quite a few" House members, although the only name he offered was that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Last night's bipartisan harmony capped a day of public unity. At an Obama rally in La Crosse, Wis., and a McCain event in Independence, Mo., the two candidates struck remarkably similar tones, speaking of the crisis as a time for unity and national purpose -- and a call for far more fiscal discipline in the future.
"The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems in Washington isn't a cause, it's a symptom. It's what happens when people go to Washington to work for themselves and not you," McCain said at the Truman Library.
"This financial crisis is a direct result of the greed and irresponsibility that has dominated Washington and Wall Street for years," Obama told a large crowd in western Wisconsin. "But while there is plenty of blame to go around and many in Washington and on Wall Street who deserve it, all of us now have a responsibility to solve this crisis, because it affects the financial well-being of every single American."
McCain even released an advertisement that decries partisanship in both parties, never mentions Obama and lifts one of his opponent's signature lines: "We're the United States of America."
"What a week," McCain says, speaking into the camera. "Democrats blamed Republicans. Republicans blamed Democrats. We're the United States of America. It shouldn't take a crisis to pull us together."
On the Senate floor, Obama crossed the well to the Republican side to reach his hand out to McCain and mouth, "Good to see you." McCain looked up briefly from his conversation with Sens. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) to give his rival a curt handshake.
On the airwaves and through the candidates' surrogates, the fierce presidential campaign raged on. Obama released a new advertisement mocking McCain's claim to be a fiscal disciplinarian, rapping him for tax cut proposals that he said would stack $3 trillion onto the federal debt, along with $1 trillion from a plan to add private investment accounts to Social Security. McCain has spoken in favor of such accounts, but he has no detailed plan.
The Republican National Committee came the closest to actually blaming Obama for the crisis, with an ad intoning: "Wall Street squanders our money, and Washington is forced to bail them out with, you guessed it, our money. Can it get any worse? Under Barack Obama's plan, the government would spend a trillion dollars more, even after the bailout."
That partisan ill will was evident in the Senate chamber. Obama entered at the tail end of a speech by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who then left the chamber. Democratic senators filed in, to listen, then mob the candidate with handshakes, hugs and good wishes. Only one Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, sat on the other side of the aisle.
LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post; Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) leaves the Capitol after voting on the $700 billion rescue plan. He and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) were among the 74 senators who voted to pass the measure. Twenty-five voted against it.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 2, 2008 Thursday
Every Edition
Blogging the Way to Election Day
BYLINE: Virginia Notebook
SECTION: EXTRAS; Pg. LZ04
This week's Notebook is a compilation of items from The Washington Post's "Virginia Politics" blog. To get your fix throughout the week, check out http://blog.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics or http://washingtonpost.com/vablog.
Food Workers Leave a Tip
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union donated $100,000 to the Virginia Democratic Party, the largest contribution it has received from an individual, business or union in a decade, according to the State Board of Elections and the Virginia Public Access Project.
The $100,000 was credited to the party's state account, meaning it cannot be used to influence this year's presidential or congressional races. But the donation allows the state party to pay its operating costs so it can focus additional resources on raising money for its federal account, which can be used to support Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and congressional candidates.
"We are happy to have their support, and we appreciate a shared interest in working families' conditions in Virginia," said Jared Leopold, a spokesman for the Virginia Democratic Party.
The United Food and Commercial Workers has become one of the biggest financial backers of the state Democratic Party, excluding contributions from candidate and national party committees, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. The union fell just short of the largest single contribution collected by the party in modern times. In 1997, the AFL-CIO gave the state party a $110,000 contribution.
The food workers' donation will certainly become fodder for Virginia Republicans, who have long argued that state Democrats are too closely aligned with organized labor.
The party also collected $10,000 from Al Dwoskin, founder and chief executive of a Fairfax County-based real estate corporation, and $25,000 from Hassan Nemazee, an Iranian-born investment banker from New York, according to the State Board of Elections. Nemazee, a major Democratic donor, served as co-chairman of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) fundraising effort during her presidential campaign.
-- TIM CRAIG
Mining Votes for Coal
Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) nveiled a radio ad accusing Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama of opposing clean coal technology in states such as Virginia, where thousands of jobs rely on the industry.
Former attorney general Jerry Kilgore (R) said the ad calls attention to Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s contradictory statements on supporting the coal industry while campaigning in southwest Virginia and other parts of the country.
"It's very alarming," Kilgore said. "This type of doublespeak has been caught onto by southwest Virginians and Virginians."
The focus on coal comes amid signs that Obama is making some inroads in southwest Virginia. A Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that 36 percent of likely voters in the western part of the state support Obama.
-- ANITA KUMAR
Kaine Pledges to Stay Put
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) pledged to remain governor through his term even if Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama wins the presidency and offers him a job in the Cabinet.
"Absolutely," he said on his monthly call-in show on WTOP (103.5 FM) radio. "I'm going to stay as governor all the way through January 2010."
Kaine, co-chairman of Obama's national campaign, had been seriously considered as a running mate for the Illinois senator. The two became friends after they campaigned together during Kaine's 2005 gubernatorial race, and Kaine has returned the favor, stumping nationwide for Obama over the past year.
"If I was asked to be vice president . . . I would have said yes," Kaine said. But, he said, he plans to remain a volunteer if Obama wins. "I hope I can be helpful," he said.
-- ANITA KUMAR
Of D.C., in D.C. but for Va.
D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) opened a local headquarters for Sen. Barack Obama in the District.
It might seem like Obama's campaign has gone overboard when it comes to opening offices. Dating to 1968, no Democratic presidential nominee has received less than 75 percent of the vote in the District. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) carried the District with 89 percent of the vote in his 2004 race against President Bush.
But Obama's D.C. office will be focused on helping his campaign efforts across the Potomac River in Virginia.
Fenty and D.C. Council members Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) and Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) urged 200 volunteers at the office opening to get to Virginia to help knock on doors. Obama offices and Democratic committees in the heavily Democratic Maryland suburbs are also geared up to help turn out the vote in Virginia this year.
The D.C. office, in the 200 block of Florida Avenue NW near Eighth Street, will also have buttons, bumper stickers and yard signs for sale.
-- DAVID NAKAMURA and TIM CRAIG
Acting Like a Democrat
Jason Alexander, an actor best known as perpetually down-in-the-dumps George Costanza on the TV show "Seinfeld," has weighed into Virginia's U.S. Senate race by helping former Democratic governor Mark R. Warner raise money.
"If you thought Seinfeld was a show about nothing, you should check out Congress," Alexander said in a fundraising letter e-mailed to supporters. "I can't remember such a lack of productivity since the summer of George."
The letter turns more serious after that. Alexander asks for donations, as small as $5, and talks about why he is throwing his "full support" behind Warner in his race against former governor James S. Gilmore III.
"He hasn't just talked a good game," Alexander said of Warner. "As governor, he actually walked the walk by working across the aisle to deliver results and turn Virginia's struggling economy around."
The two met when Warner was traveling the country to gauge interest in a possible presidential run, Warner spokesman Kevin Hall said.
-- ANITA KUMAR
The Issue Isn't Abortion
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama are making inroads into their opponent's political base in Virginia when it comes to abortion.
In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 60 percent of registered voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Thirty-eight percent said abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. Voter attitudes on the issue have essentially remained unchanged since 2000, according to previous Washington Post Virginia polls.
McCain disagrees with the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that established a woman's right to an abortion. Obama supports Roe v. Wade.
But 30 percent of voters who want to outlaw abortions said they also support Obama. Thirty-three percent of those who favor abortion rights said they back McCain.
-- TIM CRAIG
LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2008
DISTRIBUTION: Loudoun County
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Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
Obama the 'better' choice, ex-president says;
Clinton talks up '08 ticket
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The day after Sen. John McCain used Bill Clinton's words to bolster his own argument, the former president campaigned for Sen. Barack Obama for the first time, telling voters in Florida the Democrat is no doubt the "better" choice for America.
At two rallies that drew overflow crowds, Mr. Clinton laid out a case for his wife's one-time rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.
"I think you know when you vote for Barack Obama you're not just voting for him. You're voting for yourselves, your dreams, the children you have or you hope to have, and everything you want America to be in the 21st century," he said in his first public speech for the Democratic nominee since the party convention in August.
"This is our election. This is our country, and we are going to take it back and move it forward," Mr. Clinton said in Orlando.
Mr. McCain, the Republican nominee, on Tuesday released an ad featuring Mr. Clinton as someone who "knows who is responsible" for the economic crisis.
"I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Mr. Clinton says in the ad, which concludes with a narrator agreeing, "You're right, Mr. President. It didn't have to happen."
For weeks pundits have parsed Mr. Clinton's words about the Republican ticket, taking every statement that was not excoriating as praise. For example, in a CNBC interview last week, he said he would not say anything bad about Mr. McCain, who he thinks is a "great man." He also said it is a mistake to underestimate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, calling the vice-presidential nominee "instinctively effective" and saying she has a "compelling story."
But Wednesday, he made it clear whom he prefers and why, without mentioning either Republican by name.
Mr. Clinton said the next president will face massive domestic challenges to worry about.
He said while Mr. Obama has talked a lot about "how we ought to relate to the world," his travel should probably be limited his first year in office if elected.
"He is going to have to be really focused on fixing this economy," Mr. Clinton said. "That means that the role of the vice president in repairing quickly our relations in the rest of the world will be relatively more important in the first two years of the next presidency ... [and] there
is nobody in the entire United States Senate that understands the political, the economic, and the security challenges and opportunities of the whole rest of the world better than Joe Biden does He is a superb choice."
The former president urged voters to convince their friends to vote for the Obama-Biden ticket.
"You do not have to say one bad word about Senator Obama's opponent; you just have to go out and tell them the truth: The job of the next president is to rebuild the American dream, repair the financial system, restore America's leadership," Mr. Clinton said.
"On those issues, the Obama-Biden ticket, and particular Senator Obama, have a better philosophy, better answers, better understanding, better advisers, a better vice-presidential candidate, and a better plan for Florida," he said, on a day where two new polls of Florida voters have Mr. Obama leading Mr. McCain.
Mr. Clinton adopted a stump speech very similar to how he used to campaign for his wife, enumerating several specific points for why he thinks Mr. Obama is superior.
But in a marked contrast to his rallies in Iowa, he talked very little about himself other than a reference to the strength of the economy when he handed the White House keys to George W. Bush in 2001.
Mr. Clinton said he was there in Florida "because Hillary sent me," a reference to Mrs. Clinton's program of getting her 18 million Democratic primary voters to campaign for Mr. Obama. He also gave a subtle nod to Mrs. Clinton's historic candidacy, saying that a president "does his best, and someday, I hope, her very best."
The line received big cheers.
There was no direct appeal for unity, as many of the primary season's wounds have healed, though he began his remarks by saying he was there, "because none of us worked all that hard all through this year to see this election come to naught."
LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2008
GRAPHIC: Former President Bill Clinton responds to cheering supporters as he campaigns for the Democratic presidential nominee in Orlando, Fla., Wednesday. [Photo by Associated Press]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
October 1, 2008 Wednesday
Boucher defends Biden on coal comments
BYLINE: Olympia Meola, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Oct. 1--Rep. Rick Boucher, D-9th, vouched for Sen. Barack Obama's support for clean coal technology and coal's role in the country's energy future, in a conference call with reporters today.
He defended remarks made by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., after an Ohio campaign appearance, in which the Democratic vice presidential candidate was shown in a video telling a coal protester: "No coal plants here in America."
Days later in Southwest Virginia, Biden talked about the benefits of coal.
The Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin pounced on the remarks and took out a radio ad in Virginia and three other battleground states saying that the Democrats' position would cost Virginia thousands of jobs.
Boucher said no one should give credibility to "some chit chat that takes place in a rope line."
He said Biden "was talking about how dirty Chinese coal plants are and how the only way we're ever going to get those cleaned up and make a contribution that is meaningful globally to addressing the challenge of climate change and rising global temperatures is if we develop here in the United States clean coal technology and then sell them for use in China."
The Obama campaign is releasing a 30-second TV ad today in Virginia and other states, featuring a coal miner of 31 years who supports Obama.
The Republican ad focusing on the Democrats' stance on coal has yet to have a negative impact on the tight presidential race in Virginia, Boucher said, but it could.
"We just need to make sure that people do understand who the better friend of coal is and that these misleading ads not distract public attention," he said. "I don't think they've had an adverse effect as of this point, but if they're not answered, they certainly will."
Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or omeola@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2008
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PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
October 1, 2008 Wednesday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Obama's lie
While on the stump in Florida last weekend, Barack Obama contended that John McCain's talk of Social Security privatization could leave seniors destitute: "If my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week."
Obama lied. No nest eggs would have disappeared, because the McCain plan exempts every American born before 1950. I could also detail the Obama TV ad on Social Security that has been aired in Florida, Pennsylvania and five other states -- it falsely claims that McCain favors "cutting benefits in half" -- but here's the point: The Obama camp has apparently decided that the candidate needs to scare senior Americans into voting for him, because he doesn't appear to be connecting with enough of them any other way. ...
The latest nonpartisan Pew Research Center poll shows plus-65 voters favoring McCain over Obama by five points; the higher the age bracket, the lower the percentage share for Obama.
-- Dick Polman, Philadelphia Inquirer
Pay the band
For nearly a century, over-the-air broadcasters have benefited from an exemption in copyright law that allows them to play music without paying the people who performed the music. Songwriters get paid, but performers don't.
That seems unfair. Internet, satellite and cable radio outlets pay performers for their work. It's time traditional radio stations did as well. The Performance Rights Act, introduced last year by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., would lift the exemption. It should become law.
-- Chicago Tribune
NERO multiplied
If the United States does experience an economic catastrophe in the months and years ahead, and if future historians wish to identify the date on which it began, Monday may turn out to be as good a candidate as any for the title of Black Monday.
Despite agreement among the White House and Democratic and Republican congressional leaders on a financial rescue package, back-benchers from both parties scuttled the plan in the House on Monday, by a vote of 228 to 205. Amid news of spreading financial distress in Europe, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 777 points.
Yet the gathering darkness is as much political in nature as economic. Just when it seemed that American democracy had at least temporarily conquered its ugliest habits of partisanship, that the people's elected representatives were about to make a tough decision in the long-term national interest -- pique and polarization carried the day.
-- The Washington Post
On deck?
A baseball stadium has returned to the on-deck circle in Richmond politics. The mayoral candidates are talking about it. Mayor Doug Wilder has praised the virtues of a park in the Bottom.
The Braves have taken their last swings at The Diamond and next season presumably will be playing in the friendly confines of Gwinnett, Ga. Boosters expect minor-league baseball to return to central Virginia, although perhaps not at the AAA level (at least at first), and perhaps not so soon as originally hoped.
Stories about baseball's future typically report that a new stadium remains a crucial part of the equation. The policy questions relate to financing and ownership.
-- Richmond Times-Dispatch
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
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The Washington Post
October 1, 2008 Wednesday
Met 2 Edition
Nov. 4 Isn't the Only Election Day;
Campaigns Adjust as Early Voting Rises
BYLINE: Mary Pat Flaherty; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
In Columbus, college students pitched tents overnight so they could be first to vote. Advocates in Cleveland shuttled voters from homeless shelters to the polls. In Akron, voters arrived as soon as the doors were unlocked and waited in folding chairs for their turn.
Yesterday opened Ohio's unusual week-long window in which voters can register and cast absentee ballots at the same time. Hundreds arrived in steady streams, part of a first wave of people already voting across the country, five weeks before Election Day.
Given Ohio's pivotal role in presidential races, its one-stop registration and voting drew attention -- and legal challenges.
But nationally, early voting, by mail or in person, is becoming more common and is likely to account for one-third of all votes cast in the November elections, up from 14 percent in 2000, predicts Paul Gronke, a researcher with the Early Voting Information Center in Portland, Ore.
That projection tracks with growth that three other election analysts have noted, with the rate of early voting rising from 20 percent in 2004 to 25 percent in 2006. Experts and state election officials have followed the growth in early voting for more than a decade.
The change has not been lost on the campaigns, whose strategists have adjusted their operations mightily to woo those who cast ballots early, viewing them as electoral gold -- captured votes.
"Every vote we get in early is one less to run down on Election Day," said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
With that same view, the Obama campaign debuted an ad in Ohio on Friday explicitly aimed at early voters. "It was engineered just for that purpose, and it is the sort of thing you see campaigns doing more of," said Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which monitors ad spending.
The early-voting trend does not benefit one party over the other, experts say, because each is targeting infrequent voters. On the Democratic side, that means urban, often minority voters and students. On the Republican side, it is older voters and those in more rural areas who favor absentee ballots.
For both campaigns, the numbers are critical. In the highly competitive states of Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, nearly half of voters are expected to cast ballots early this year, Gronke said.
In Ohio, early voting has shaped the candidates' operations.
Richard Kidd, a Dayton barber who volunteers with the Barack Obama campaign's community outreach effort, promised to drive customers at his shop to an early-voting site if they wanted to lock in their choices ahead of Election Day. Even before the voting began yesterday, Kidd had more than 100 voters committed.
"I wanted to make sure people who wanted to vote didn't feel stressed out that day," Kidd said.
Downstate in heavily Republican Lebanon, Lori Viars has been part of a "chase" program that mails John McCain literature to likely supporters who asked the county for an absentee ballot. The McCain team has mailed out 1 million absentee applications, and now Viars coordinates with the banks of callers who are following up, hoping to secure early votes.
Yesterday, she said, her e-mail was full of reminders about early voting and appeals for volunteers to sign up and start working now.
The effort to turn out early voters, she said, "is bigger than I've ever seen it."
This is the first presidential election in which Ohio voters do not have to provide an excuse to get an absentee ballot. But in the West, early voting took root in the 1980s, when election officials wanted to attract new voters and retain those who had become discouraged by long waits and time-consuming ballots bloated with referendum issues.
With each election cycle, the practice has moved eastward as states have adjusted voting rules to accommodate voters seeking convenience.
Thirty-one states -- not including Maryland, Virginia or the District -- allow no-excuse early voting. Others allow absentee voting, by mail or in person, only with an excuse. In Oregon, all voting is done by mail.
Benjamin Ginsberg, a longtime Republican strategist, said that over the past few presidential races, "there has been a dawning awareness" of the opportunity early voting presents to campaigns.
Obama and McCain campaign officials wouldn't detail their strategies. But experts say that generally, early voting requires campaigns to recalibrate the pace of their spending, arranging big ad buys, literature drops and volunteer canvassing weeks before Election Day.
"As soon as the window opens, you have to move. You want to be reaching out with the full weight of your message," said Geoff Garin, a strategist for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential run. "The idea of a closing argument is quaint, if not antiquated."
During Democrat John F. Kerry's 2004 campaign, close to half of the expenditures for field operations in Iowa went toward locking down absentee voters, said John Norris, who was Kerry's state director there. "Significant amounts are spent up front," he said.
Drawing out a campaign, however, can strain an operation.
"The greatest price you pay is wear and tear on your volunteer base," said Patricia McCaig, a Democratic strategist who has worked for a decade in Oregon. "You aren't working to get out the vote just for those last 72 hours. You are doing it for weeks, and it's hard to sustain energy and enthusiasm."
Experts say they cannot point to a national contest in which early votes determined the outcome, but they say it has figured heavily into a few races.
Four years ago in New Mexico, Kerry booked a sizable pool of absentee voters, catching Republicans off guard and driving them to the last-minute get-out-the-vote effort that allowed them to carry the state.
The risks of early voting, according to some election analysts, include increased potential for fraud and voter error: Outside official polling places, it is easier for voters to obtain multiple ballots or to be improperly influenced in casting their votes, and there is no mechanism to alert them to mistakes on their ballots. It also carries the possibility of buyer's remorse if there are late surprises in the campaign, because in most states, there is no opportunity to take back a ballot once it has been cast.
But early voting has been encouraged by election officials, who see it as a way to reduce long lines and confusion on Election Day.
Officials in Franklin County, Ohio, which includes Columbus, launched a radio and TV campaign to encourage absentee voting after they saw hours-long waits in the March primary, and they have reported a record 117,000 requests for absentee ballots.
Based on the Columbus turnout yesterday, county officials expect between 10,000 and 12,000 early voters.
Court fights, which have turned into a bitter and continuing battle in Ohio, underscore just how important early voting has become, with Republicans challenging decisions by Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.
An effort to block the one-stop registration and voting window was rejected by the state Supreme Court on Monday.
In a pending case, Republicans argue that they will lose votes because Brunner has advised local elections boards not to honor absentee ballot requests if voters failed to check a box on the form affirming that they are qualified to vote.
The chance to cast a ballot early appealed to a range of Ohio voters.
When Oberlin College offered to bus students to register and vote, 600 of its 2,800 students were on board.
Obama supporter Joe Staley, a seasoned voter and high school government teacher in Dayton, said he sees early voting as a way to start building enthusiasm for his candidate.
"I wanted to get out there," he said, "and get the momentum going."
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 1, 2008 Wednesday
Suburban Edition
Candidates Follow Up on Plan;
Both Men Talk to President, as Well as Members of Their Parties in Congress
BYLINE: Anne E. Kornblut and Michael D. Shear; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
After watching the spectacular defeat of a $700 billion financial rescue plan in the House on Monday, Sen. Barack Obama yesterday accelerated his effort to sell the proposal, seeking to redress what his advisers believe has been a failure by the White House to adequately explain the plan.
Both Obama and his rival for the presidency, Sen. John McCain, called yesterday for the FDIC insurance limit to be raised to protect as much as $250,000 per bank account, a suggestion that was adopted as an emergency measure later in the day. McCain, at an economic roundtable in Des Moines, said that "we cannot allow a crisis in our financial system to become a crisis in confidence."
Both Obama and McCain also called President Bush on Tuesday morning, according to White House aides and the two campaigns. McCain said he urged the president to tap the Treasury Department's $250 billion Exchange Stabilization Fund to help shore up financial institutions, as well as to exercise new authority to buy as much as $1 trillion in mortgages.
"I encouraged him to use this fund as creatively as possible," McCain said of the stabilization fund.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto described both calls as "constructive," saying the nominees were offering to proceed with caution to avoid derailing any progress. "They know they're in delicate discussions, and they don't want to put out proposals that would make it more difficult to get legislation passed," Fratto said.
Obama also sought to put new pressure on some of the 95 Democrats who voted to defeat the bill, calling members whom he might be able to influence. His effort came as McCain continued to call Republican members of the House.
Obama's focus, his senior advisers said, is on using vivid language on the campaign trail to convey how the package would affect voters' lives -- in the hope of increasing public support for it and leading reluctant lawmakers in both parties to switch their votes.
Campaigning in Nevada on Tuesday, Obama rejected the loaded term "bailout" -- a phrase that has been abandoned by the White House because of the connotation that it would help the perpetrators of the meltdown -- and said that if the plan were designed to save "a few big banks on Wall Street, it would be one thing."
"But that's not what it means," Obama said. "What it means is that if we do not act, it will be harder for you to get a mortgage for your home or the loans you need to buy a car or send your children to college. . . . Millions of jobs could be lost. A long and painful recession could follow."
He attempted to reframe the bill from the idea of just handing $700 billion to Wall Street, and he said the plan had been "misunderstood and poorly communicated."
"When it's called a bailout, nobody is in favor of a bailout," Obama said.
McCain, still stung by the defeat of a compromise he had championed, changed the subject slightly on Tuesday to focus on tax policy, hammering Obama with the oft-repeated charge that the Democratic nominee would raise taxes.
McCain also released another ad playing off of the collapse of housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and underscoring the call for greater regulation he made two years earlier. The ad includes a surprise guest: former president Bill Clinton, with footage of an interview in which Clinton said Democrats share responsibility for not enacting stiffer oversight in past Congresses.
"I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said in the Sept. 25 interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."
At the same time, the Republican National Committee released an ad on McCain's behalf that seemed to suggest that McCain opposes passage of a rescue package. "Wall Street squanders our money, and Washington is forced to bail them out with -- you guessed it -- our money. Can it get any worse?" the ad says.
Asked to reconcile McCain's call for bipartisanship with the tough rhetoric coming from the RNC and the campaign, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds replied: "Just because we need a rescue plan doesn't mean we're going to allow Barack Obama to run around the country misrepresenting his previous proposals for punitive tax increases on businesses."
McCain and Obama will return to Washington this afternoon so that they can vote on the rescue bill, aides to both men's campaigns said last night. The Senate is expected to take up the bill as early as tonight.
Staff writer Perry Bacon Jr. contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Charlie Neibergall -- Associated Press; Sen. John McCain, who was at a small-business roundtable in Des Moines, phoned President Bush and urged him to tap the Exchange Stabilization Fund.
IMAGE; By Jason Reed -- Reuters; Sen. Barack Obama, shown after a rally in Reno, Nev., called for the FDIC insurance limit to be raised.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 1, 2008 Wednesday
Suburban Edition
Shooting From the Hip, With a Smile to Boot
BYLINE: Libby Copeland; Washington Post Staff Writer
The heart of Sarah Palin's appeal is --
Wait, did you see that? There! She did it again: wrinkled up her nose in a way that either looks like a sneer or is adorably reminiscent of Samantha from "Bewitched." Depending on whom you talk to.
Next time you see a clip of the Republican vice presidential nominee, try this exercise. Mute your TV and just watch that face. How often do you see someone in political life so extravagantly expressive? The eyebrows go up, the shoulder leans in, the thumb jauntily gestures backward, the tongue actually fixes in the cheek. To mock Barack Obama, she licks her finger and holds it to the imaginary wind! And that smile, that nearly ever-present smile, which either indicates -- oh, dear, here we go again -- that she's sarcastic and dismissive or that she's letting you in on a very clever joke.
People love her so. People hate her so. At the heart of it is the delivery, a style of speaking we'll see again in tomorrow night's debate, a style that reaches past folksy and veers into the territory of -- to hell with it, cue the charges of sexism -- cute.
"She's perky, she's spunky," says Republican speechwriter Landon Parvin, who has written for both Presidents Bush. "She has this quality -- in a 1950s comedy, her father would call her 'Button.' "
And?
"This allows her to get away with murder," he says.
* * *
All you wannabe hockey moms who imagine yourselves having coffee with Sarah Palin and swapping five-minute dinner recipes? Who find it endearing when Palin refers to her husband as "my guy"? Who like the smiling certainty in her tone, the determination in her squint? This is for you.
And all you Pal-lergics who dislike not only her hard-edged politics but that spoonful of sugar she serves it with? Who say her manner reminds you of -- we'll quote here from a Pal-lergic named Judi Dickerson who coaches actors on dialogue -- "the snotty head cheerleader in high school who was untouchable because she was always gonna win"? This is for you, too.
Sarah Palin is many things -- somber is not one of them. There's something about her delivery that suggests she's almost always having fun. You know how they call Joe Biden the happy warrior? Palin has a similar quality -- the ability to attack without seeming angry. Some of that is the smile on her face and the evident humor in her voice, as Sheila Tate, Nancy Reagan's former press secretary, points out.
But there's a lot more at work. It starts with the way Palin's delivery allows her to leap through the camera into your living room. Perhaps in part because of her background as a television reporter and beauty pageant competitor, she seems to understand how the camera works.
"What she knows is that the camera is a thief," says Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, who has worked for former House speaker Dennis Hastert and former Senate majority leader Trent Lott, among others. "The camera will steal your emotions and make you flat, and what she's doing is over-emphasizing her emotions, over-emphasizing her delivery, in order to get that realness across to the camera."
The realness is what her fans talk about -- that she's like them, that she doesn't seem contrived. "We feel like she talks like we do," says Susan Geary, a Richmond retiree who attended a McCain-Palin rally in Fairfax last month. "Like she's sitting in your kitchen."
There's a consistency to Palin's appeal -- if you go back and look at old clips of her, you see many of the same stylistic elements -- the warmth and the eager delivery, the voice that drops and rises emphatically, the dropped g's.
"That's been her bread and butter for 20 years, from the day she sat down in front of the TV cameras to do her sportscasting," says Anchorage-based pollster Ivan Moore. "Her success in her political career has been based on being able to project this enormously friendly, enormously appealing physical presence -- and, some people would argue, use it to conceal this very much more ruthless and nakedly political character."
Palin's fans are drawn to her story, that folk-hero combination of caribou-hunting toughness and traditional femininity that John McCain's campaign has played up. For many Palin supporters, her attractiveness does not weaken her appeal -- rather, it balances those tales of aggression on the tundra. Supporters have charged her critics with sexism but at the same time, at the GOP convention, delegates wore buttons that said "Hottest VP From the Coolest State." For a while, Cindy McCain was introducing Palin as a "true Western woman," evoking images of pretty prairie wives with rifles who could out-hunt their husbands and still get dinner on the table. (Hot chicks with guns being a beloved American archetype.)
They are also drawn to the notion of Palin's PTA-mom-just-like-you-ness, which is enhanced by the hair, which has not been cut short in the style of many political women, and the voice, which has not been brought down to a deeper register, or stripped of its Alaska-by-way-of-middle-America nasality. Palin does more than mention her five children as biographical fact in appearances -- she also speaks in mom language. What other major political figure would attempt what she said at her welcome-home rally in Fairbanks last month?
"I see some of our staff members here and cabinet members," she told the audience at a rally. "I can't wait to give you guys a hug."
Palin's huggability is evidence of her accessibility -- or of her lack of gravitas, depending on where you sit. When she met Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in New York recently, he called her "gorgeous" and joked he might hug her. In response, she laughed.
Much of Palin's appeal -- as well as what some find grating-- is about the language she chooses, which is folksy in the extreme. She says "heck" and "darn" and "gosh" and "shoot" and "oh, gee." She says, "Guys and gals, our regulatory system is outdated." And: The nation's financial system "needs some shakin' up and some fixin'." She pronounces things "awesome" and "cool," as in: "He's an awesome bundle of joy" (baby Trig) and "It was so cool growin' up in this church and gettin' saved here" (the Wasilla Assembly of God). The critics -- she calls 'em "haters."
Could central casting produce a more ideal messenger for the new Republican populism?
"I'm sure she's not from Alaska -- she's been sitting on a Hollywood sound stage for years waiting for this," says Paul Costello, the former press aide to Rosalynn Carter and Kitty Dukakis. "She's so unbelievably perfect. . . . Even the red ruby shoes that she's been wearing."
In speeches, Palin's comedic timing is spot-on and her intonation is exaggerated, sweeping her audience along on the current of her message. "Very story-timey," says John Neffinger, a communications consultant who coaches corporate speakers and Democratic congressional candidates. "She varies her intonation all over the place so you know exactly what feelings she's trying to convey. Lots of warmth, very singsongy."
In the few interviews she has given, or when taking questions from voters, Palin speaks with speed and a rat-a-tat delivery, as if a pause were a sign of weakness. Sometimes she drops her voice to a rock-and-roll growl. Her hands move in concert, pointing to her lips, jabbing over her shoulder. Her delivery is "decisive, task-focused," says Ken Brousseau, who consults with executive search firm Korn/Ferry International on corporate leadership styles. "Very black and white." Contrast that with Barack Obama's more deliberative style, his long "uuuhs," his concessions to the opposition. ("John, you're absolutely right," in the presidential debate, over and over.)
When she's forced outside her comfort zone, as has happened more than a few times of late, Palin tends to "slip back to her talking points," as CBS's Katie Couric recently put it. John McCain is a maverick. Lots of things need some shakin' up. Palin may try to turn a question around ("In what respect, Charlie?") or stall when asked for examples to bolster her argument ("I'll try to find you some and I'll bring 'em to ya!").
"Forgive me, Mrs. Palin," faux Katie Couric said to faux Sarah Palin on last week's "Saturday Night Live," "but it seems to me that when cornered you become increasingly adorable."
There's a youthfulness and an enthusiasm there -- Palin is all emoticons; Rachael Ray as candidate for higher office. (When she ran for mayor of Wasilla in 1996, her campaign ad boasted upbeat, jazzy music and a slogan reminiscent of daytime TV: "Positively Sarah.") She speaks with supreme confidence (Ya can't blink, Charlie). On Monday, she said she looked forward to meeting Senate veteran Joe Biden at their debate.
"I've been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in, like, the second grade," she told an audience in Columbus, Ohio -- emphasizing her youth, as well as suggesting an unusual attentiveness to the earliest speeches of Biden, who was sworn in when she was 8.
Perhaps, suggests former Miss America Kate Shindle, an undecided Republican, there's a touch of the pageant world to Palin's voice, to her careful adherence to sound bites, and that "cheerful aggressiveness" that Shindle calls "part cheerleader, part news anchor and part drill sergeant."
The confidence is underscored by something Palin does frequently at the ends of her sentences. She sets her lips in forceful line (perfectly captured by Tina Fey in her first "Saturday Night Live" impersonation) as if to communicate that the matter is settled.
Now mute the television again. Watch Palin's body. She expresses excitement through encouraging nods as well as what Karen Bradley -- a University of Maryland dance professor who studies body movement -- calls this "little shoulder wiggle." And watch that nose wiggle -- which Parvin, the Republican speechwriter, says sometimes conveys "a cute determination" and sometimes "a cute distastefulness." And sometimes, it operates as a sort of "exclamation point," conveying agreement, he says. He calls her "Gidget goes to Washington."
"She is playing into a cultural stereotype," says Drew Westen, a psychiatry professor at Emory University who also works as a Democratic consultant and wrote "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation." And the stereotype? Westen cites Marlo Thomas in "That Girl," Mary Tyler Moore in "The Dick Van Dyke Show," Sally Field in "The Flying Nun" -- a model of perky femininity that "was really salient in the early '60s before the sexual revolution and the cultural revolution took hold."
These physical and rhetorical habits set Palin in relief to Hillary Clinton, who projected great strength but much less of what one Democratic political consultant calls "traditional feminine warmth." Which was why it caused such a splash when Clinton once told a crowd, "I'm your girl" -- there is little that's girly about Hillary Clinton's public persona. Palin calls herself a "gal" and it's utterly believable -- for better or worse.
"She's not a woman trying to deliver a speech like a man, and there is an integrity to that," says Parvin.
And all of which means Sarah Palin is either great or awful, depending on whom you talk to, because her style and her conservative beliefs are either post-feminist or the antithesis of feminism. If Palin's cuteness is disarming to her supporters, it is troubling to those who worry that she lacks intellectual heft, and infuriating to those who feel she's being coddled. Not too long ago, CNN anchor Campbell Brown suggested the McCain campaign was being sexist by shielding Palin from interviews. Acting coach Dickerson suggests that Palin gets to be as nakedly political as any other candidate while being shielded from retaliation because of the perception that she is, after all, just a gal.
"You have a very glamorous, pretty woman with, actually, a very girly delivery -- but what comes out of her are the words of a very savvy, very tough politician," says Dickerson. "It creates a mixed message of allowing her to really say anything that she wants."
Who decides what's fair? Sarah Palin is hugging us all into confusion.
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; By Mark Lyons -- Getty Images
IMAGE; By Susan Walsh -- Associated Press
IMAGE; By Rick Wilking -- Reuters; As a former beauty queen and sportscaster, the Republican veep nominee knows how to play to the camera.
IMAGE; By Eric Risberg -- Associated Press; Mom language: "I can't wait to give you guys a hug," Sarah Palin tells staffers at a welcome-home rally in Fairbanks.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
October 1, 2008 Wednesday
Met 2 Edition
A Two-Pronged Push To Aid Ailing Banks
BYLINE: Binyamin Appelbaum and Carrie Johnson; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Two federal agencies moved yesterday to ease the financial pressure on banks even as Congress continued to debate the wisdom of a broader intervention.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said it would ask Congress to extend the government's guarantee of bank deposits beyond the current limit of $100,000 on each standard account, hoping to convince queasy depositors that there is no need to pull money from troubled banks.
Meanwhile, securities regulators and accounting rule-makers granted banks greater power to decide the value of their investments, even if market data suggest that prices should be lower. That could allow some banks to report smaller losses, perhaps comforting investors.
The carefully calibrated moves are trial balloons from an administration under intense pressure. Regulators, convinced that financial firms' problems are becoming economic problems, are searching for ways to help the financial industry without further provoking an angry public -- or its elected representatives in Congress.
If successful, yesterday's moves could stanch the bleeding at commercial banks in two ways: limiting their losses as the value of their mortgage investments declines and as customers withdraw deposits.
But both proposals drew quick criticism as attempts to hide rather than solve the industry's problems. An increase in the deposit guarantee also could have the effect of sheltering banks from their own mistakes by making it easier to retain depositors. And the accounting proposal has been described by critics as a way to allow banks to conceal losses.
"These veiled attempts to return to older, flawed cost-accounting methods will do more harm than good by allowing financial services companies to obscure deterioration in their balance sheets and avoid charges necessary to ensure that their income statements reflects their true economic performance," Donn Vickrey of Gradient Analytics, a market research firm, wrote in a note to clients.
The events yesterday again highlighted the increased prominence of FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair, who has taken a lead role in the government's response as the financial crisis spreads from Wall Street to infect retail and commercial banks.
Bair in the past week has engineered deals to sell Washington Mutual to J.P. Morgan Chase and Wachovia to Citigroup. Now she is trying to forestall any additional fire sales. Washington Mutual and Wachovia, two of the nation's largest banks, were forced into the hands of federal regulators in part because reports of ill health led depositors to withdraw money the banks needed to survive.
Bair placed a call yesterday morning to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, to tell him that she planned to send Congress a formal request for the insurance increase because of concern about bank runs. Congress would have to vote to change the law.
The cap has not been raised since 1980, while average balances have climbed. Small businesses, in particular, often keep large account balances. As a result, only 63 percent of bank deposits now fit under the FDIC's umbrella.
"Unfortunately, there is an increasing crisis of confidence that is feeding unnecessary fear in the marketplace," Bair said in a statement. "To address this crisis of confidence, I do believe that it would be helpful for the FDIC to have the temporary ability to raise deposit insurance limits."
An FDIC spokesman said the agency was not supporting any particular number for a new cap, and it did not specify how long the increase should last. Those decisions will be left up to Congress. Leaders in both parties, including both presidential candidates, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), have called for a cap of $250,000. That higher limit already applies to retirement accounts.
Any increase in the ceiling would require an expansion of the FDIC's insurance fund. The fund is replenished by an assessment on the banking industry, not taxpayers, but higher assessments would limit the amount of money banks have available to make loans.
Some experts warned that $250,000 is an arbitrary number. William Isaac, a former FDIC chairman, said many small businesses would still have deposits in excess of that ceiling. Government data show that almost a quarter of bank deposits would remain uninsured.
Isaac said the government instead should emulate its recent guarantee of money-market mutual funds by announcing that it will guarantee all bank deposits for the duration of the financial crisis.
"Increasing FDIC insurance coverage to $250,000 is a serious mistake," Isaac said. "The government just last week said it would insure 100 percent of money-market accounts, and now they're going to toss a $250,000 bone to banks?"
Yesterday's second front was opened by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which, together with the Financial Accounting Standards Board, issued what it called a "clarification" to provisions that have come under fire from bank executives and some lawmakers for contributing to the credit crisis.
Under an accounting standard that took effect in November, businesses are required to employ "fair value" accounting, meaning that at regular intervals they must adjust the value of assets to reflect market prices even if they do not intend to sell those assets for a long time, perhaps until prices have recovered.
The standard, also known as "mark to market," has forced banks in recent months to take big losses as other banks sell assets at fire-sale prices, driving down values throughout the market. That in turn has sometimes required banks to raise money to meet regulatory requirements that they keep enough capital on hand to cover potential losses.
Lobbyists for the American Bankers Association and the Financial Services Roundtable urged the SEC in a meeting last week to suspend or relax the accounting provision. A similar advocacy effort continues on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are redrafting bailout legislation.
Yesterday's move does not go as far as the industry would like. The three-page joint statement from the SEC and FASB just gives companies more leeway to assign their own values in cases where markets are "disorderly" or seized by liquidity problems. It also gives companies more room to insist that declines in the value of assets are only temporary, allowing them to defer even larger write-downs.
Regulators also reminded companies yesterday that in exchange for being able to use more estimates and judgment, the need to disclose their valuation methods to investors is all the more important. The SEC sent letters reminding firms of their obligations twice already this year, in March and September, after expressing concern that many financial institutions were using opaque measurements.
Banking groups cheered the changes, which they said had been growing in urgency because the third fiscal quarter for many companies ended yesterday.
"This is a significant first step and adds stability, confidence and liquidity within the capital markets," said Steve Bartlett, chief executive of the Financial Services Roundtable.
But trade groups representing audit firms and financial analysts warned against going further.
The Center for Audit Quality, a coalition of 800 accounting firms, pointed out in a letter to members of Congress yesterday that inflated valuations only made the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s all the more "devastating when the bubble finally burst."
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
October 1, 2008 Wednesday
'Bailout' by any other name sounds sweeter
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan and Jennifer Harper, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Washington struggled Tuesday for a solution for the Wall Street mess but settled on what to blame for the failure of a $700 billion package - the word "bailout."
Lawmakers argued that it wasn't so much the size or scope of the package they wrote, but rather that they allowed their giant, complex bill to be boiled down to one pejorative that sunk it.
Now it's "rescue" to the rescue, as those who want a bill pivoted to the R-word, hoping that will help them win votes in an expected redo later this week.
"Let's not call it a 'bailout.' Let's call it a 'rescue' because it is a rescue. It's a rescue of Main Street America," Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain said Tuesday morning on CNN.
He was followed later in the day by White House spokesman Tony Fratto, who said that by using the word bailout, the press had adopted "the language of the critics."
"I think it's really unfortunate shorthand for a very complicated issue," Mr. Fratto said.
"Our critics took the language of a 'bailout for Wall Street.' And I think it's undeniable that the media chose the branding of this debate. ... We're going to continue to communicate
on this, and hopefully we can do a better job of making clear just what our goal is, and what we're trying to fix"
Financial adviser and radio host Ric Edelman said the Bush administration has mainly itself to blame.
"This is a public-relations disaster that was accidentally prompted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson when he went to Capitol Hill and used the term '$700 billion bailout.' That moniker stuck. The media used that phrase, and consumers accepted it at face value," Mr. Edelman said.
"This has been poor use of jargon by policymakers who are used to talking to each other, not the public," he said.
Never mind that dictionary definitions suggest that "bailout" and "rescue" can be used interchangeably - which is exactly what most newspapers and newscasts have been doing during the past two weeks.
In Tuesday's headlines, The Washington Times called the $700 billion bill a "historic bailout," while the New York Times and Wall Street Journal also labeled it a "bailout." The Washington Post and USA Today both called it a "rescue."
"I'd hate to be doing PR for the government this week," said Richard Laermer, a Manhattan-based public relations executive. "All they're doing is covering their own butt and helping others cover theirs, which is a terrible way to live."
But, he agreed, "Bailout is a terrible word. It should have been disallowed in any conversation. You want good terminology, not spin."
Mr. Laermer added that the White House "made a huge mistake not showing the doomsday scenarios with more clarity to the public. The people would have called their congressmen and said, 'Hey, I don't want to be on a bread line.' "
While other Republicans shunned the B-word, the independent expenditure arm of the Republican National Committee used it on Tuesday in a new ad tying the giant package to Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama.
Mr. Obama, for his part, used the word "rescue" six times in a campaign speech in Reno, Nev., on Tuesday. The B-word was nary to be found.
"This is no longer just a Wall Street crisis: It's an American crisis, and it's the American economy that needs this rescue plan," he said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to neutralize the word "bailout" by arguing that the financial mess is really about average consumers and taxpayers, not Wall Street executives.
In a floor speech, the Kentucky Republican highlighted the effects on his constituents, citing a woman who said she might have to sell off part of her family's farmland and a small-business owner who said the interest rate on his building jumped 400 percent.
McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said the overwhelming opposition that flooded congressional offices over the past week had something to do with the way the plan was characterized.
"If this thing is determined to be a 'bailout' versus a 'rescue' plan for people at home, it makes a difference how they perceive it," he said. "When people learn the real consequences of inaction versus a sound bite describing it as a bailout for fat cats, that makes a difference."
Many conservatives, however, argue that it was not the marketing but the terms of the plan that led to its defeat in the House on Monday.
"The bailout had the support of every power broker and special-interest lobbyist in Washington," said Richard A. Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com. "It had the support of virtually every fat-cat campaign contributor; it had the support of the mainstream media, who told us ad nauseam that everyone - everyone - supported a bailout.
"Everyone acknowledges something must be done with the financial situation, but the bailout bill was not what Americans wanted," he said. "After the vote in the House, I looked out my window and the sky had not fallen, so America indeed has yet another day to resolve this mess."
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
October 1, 2008 Wednesday
Verbose Biden prone to gaffes;
Endears some, enrages others
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Say what?
Democrats in the chattering class smack their foreheads when the words of vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. earn the "gaffe" label, as they do often.
But for every Biden moment that might make Sen. Barack Obama cringe - observing that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is "good-looking," blasting his own campaign ad as "terrible" and suggesting the rich paying higher taxes is "patriotic" - voters are warming to the Delaware senator.
"He says what he thinks. It shows he's one of us," said Carol Babb, an interior designer from Woodbridge, Va., who lost her job and supports the Democratic ticket.
"His frankness is very much connected to reality," said Mike Vandiver, a retired minister from Anderson, S.C.
Mr. Biden's reputation for candor and verbosity have earned him more scrutiny than the other candidates and underscores the importance of his preparation for his single debate with Mrs. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee.
His errors are magnified by Republicans who exploit his reputation for having loose lips, but Mr. Biden's steady presence in swing states from Virginia to Wisconsin maximizes the Democratic ticket's presence in those states.
He raised some eyebrows in Ohio in August, telling voters they had to make sure "there's no overtimes," referring to a close race.
"We ain't counting on any recounts. We ain't counting on any overtimes," he said. "Until Barack Obama puts some real people on the Supreme Court, we can't count on this being fair."
In Woodbridge recently, Mr. Biden told voters that Republican nominee Sen. John McCain is "profoundly out of touch" after his off-message comments on the Obama campaign's McCain attack ad earned a Drudge Report banner. Soon after calling it "terrible," he issued a statement couching his comment by saying he hadn't actually seen the ad and adding Team McCain has no right to criticize because it is running a negative campaign.
Republicans are preparing for any Biden exaggerations during the debate and jumped on his dramatization of a snowstorm that forced his helicopter in Afghanistan to land suddenly. The party also has created a "gaffe timeline" aides send to reporters to make sure no error is left unreported.
Mrs. Palin has had her share of errors on the campaign trail - from misstating her location as Grand Rapids, which is in Michigan, when she was actually in Cedar Rapids, which is in Iowa, to struggling to detail reforms Mr. McCain has brought to Washington, to referring to the potential 2009 White House as the "Palin and McCain administration."
The conventional wisdom when Mr. Obama chose Mr. Biden was that it was an attempt to shore up a foreign-policy weakness on the ticket, but Mr. Biden has almost exclusively focused on the economy while undertaking a heavy campaign schedule. He's been in so many states for rallies, town halls and fundraisers, that he had to hand over most hearings of his Foreign Relations Committee to colleagues.
He also has served as a reliable attack dog, simultaneously calling Mr. McCain his longtime "friend" while saying "his economic philosophy is as bankrupt as Lehman Brothers."
Virginia voters cheered loudly as he repeated "We will end this war" while pounding on his podium.
For all the excitement - and good local press he generates in swing states - some Democrats are getting heartburn.
For example, when Mr. Biden gave ABC a standard Democratic line about higher taxes for the rich, the comment exploded into a full political scandal.
He said people making more than $250,000 per year "are going to pay more" and should realize: "It's time to be patriotic, time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."
Republicans used the Biden comments in an Internet-only attack ad suggesting electing Democrats would mean: "Lots more taxes, lots more patriots."
The ad doesn't mention Mr. McCain initially opposed the Bush tax cuts.
Both sides are setting low expectations for Thursday's Biden-Palin debate in St. Louis.
Mrs. Palin talks up her rival as someone with decades of experience. Both are hunkered down in preparation for the big event.
On the trail, Mr. Biden keeps his stump speech focused on the economy. He holds multiple events each day in the most economically hurt swing states, telling voters that Mr. Obama is like all of them and stressing the Democrats will fight for the working class.
He seems to be having the time of his life, meeting the Pittsburgh Steelers coach and getting to tour the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
"You know as a kid you have all kinds of dreams - I dreamed that someday I'd get here to the Hall of Fame," he said after the tour. "Like a lot of kids who played ball and thought they were pretty good, I was hoping to be doing this as an inductee."
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2008
GRAPHIC: Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is known for misspeaking, addresses a crowd during a campaign stop last week in Nesbitt Park in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. [Photo by Associated Press]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
October 1, 2008 Wednesday
Hopefuls play blame game;
Hill failure on bailout cited in ads
BYLINE: By Joseph Curl, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The presidential candidates on Tuesday continued to seek political gain from the nation's financial crisis with Sen. Barack Obama blaming President Bush's Republican policies and Sen. John McCain echoing former President Bill Clinton's comments to fault congressional Democrats.
A day after a proposed rescue package crashed and burned on Capitol Hill amid partisan rancor, the two hopefuls steered clear of blaming each other while seeking to paint their opponent's party as most to blame.
"I believe that politics has played too great a role in this. I think that [Democratic House] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi's speech was very unnecessary and inflammatory," Mr. McCain said on NBC in the morning.
Meanwhile, Mr. Obama said the crisis was caused by "the greed and irresponsibility that has dominated Washington and Wall Street for years."
"It's the result of an economic philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else," the Illinois Democrat said in Reno, Nev. "And this economic catastrophe is the final verdict on this failed philosophy - a philosophy that we cannot afford to continue."
The candidates, who had vowed not to seek political advantage from the Wall Street mess, each issued new campaign commercials as well, harshly ascribing blame to the other side.
Mr. McCain's ad cited a Washington Post editorial that said he had "pushed for stronger regulation" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage institutions that failed and set off the crisis, while Mr. Obama was "notably silent."
"Democrats blocked the reforms," the ad's narrator says. "Loans soared. Then, the bubble burst. And, taxpayers are on the hook for billions.
"Bill Clinton knows who is responsible," the narrator says before the ad cuts to Mr. Clinton, who said this week: "I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."
"You're right, Mr. President. It didn't have to happen," the ad concludes.
Mr. Obama fired back with his own campaign commercial critical of Mr. Bush and, by extension, his fellow Republican, Mr. McCain. "The old trickle-down theory has failed us," Mr. Obama said in the ad. "We can't afford four more years like the last eight."
Mr. Obama had some company on that tactic. Mr. McCain also targeted the Bush administration, saying in Iowa that there were steps the president and his Cabinet could still take "with the stroke of the pen to help alleviate the crisis gripping our economy. I urge them to do so."
The Republican said Mr. Bush could use the federal stabilization fund to back uninsured money-market accounts, as the Treasury Department is currently doing with mutual funds.
With the Republican dropping and the Democrat rising in the polls - economic downturns almost always favor the party out of power - the two nominees also began to work somewhat together to win passage of the rescue package. Each talked to Mr. Bush in the morning, having discussions a White House spokesman called "very constructive."
"The senators offered ideas and reaffirmed what they have said publicly - that this is a critical issue that needs to be addressed," Tony Fratto said.
Both White House contenders suggested increasing federal deposit insurance for families and small businesses from $100,000 to $250,000. House Republicans, who have demanded less direct intervention from taxpayers, had sought the measure before but failed to win support.
Each nominee also worked to sell the rescue package - which started with each calling it a "rescue" instead of a "bailout" - a term lawmakers from both parties adopted to try to sell the package to reticent Americans.
Mr. Obama said the likelihood that the government will recoup most if not all of the $700 billion in the package has "been the most misunderstood and poorly communicated aspect of this entire plan."
"This is not a plan to just hand over $700 billion of your money to a few banks on Wall Street. If this is executed the right way, then the government will temporarily purchase the bad assets of our financial institutions so that they can start lending again, and then sell those assets once the markets settle down and the economy recovers," he said.
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2008
GRAPHIC: Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain says in Des Moines, Iowa, there are steps the president could still take "with the stroke of the pen to help alleviate the crisis." [Photo by Associated Press]
In a speech in Reno, Nev., Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama blames the financial crisis on a "failed philosophy - a philosophy that we cannot afford to continue." [Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 30, 2008 Tuesday
Final Edition
Kilgores attack Obama-Biden on coal
BYLINE: TYLER WHITLEY; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-7
The Kilgore twins pounded the Democratic ticket of Sens. Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr. yesterday for what they called doublespeak on coal.
Former Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore and his identical twin brother, Del. Terry G. Kilgore, R-Scott, said Biden said he did not want any more clean-coal plants in the United States only days before he touted the benefits of coal during an appearance in Southwest Virginia.
The Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, looking for an edge in a Virginia contest that appears too close to call, has taken out a radio ad in Virginia and three other battleground states saying that the Democrats' position would cost Virginia thousands of jobs.
The ad is running in Southwest Virginia, Harrisonsburg and Roanoke. Thousands of people are employed in coal-mining in Southwest Virginia.
The area generally votes Republican in presidential elections, but Obama and Biden have made visits to that area, hoping at least to cut into GOP margins there.
"No coal plants in America? No jobs in Virginia? No energy independence for America?" the ad asks.
After a campaign appearance in Ohio, Biden, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, was shown in a video telling a coal protester: "No coal plants here in America. We're not supporting clean coal."
Clark Stevens, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, noted that Obama has received the endorsement of the United Mine Workers of America.
"Barack Obama's record of support for coal as an important step in our path to energy independence is clear and unequivocal," he said.
"As president, he's going to invest $150 billion over 10 years in clean-energy initiatives, and that includes money to help speed the development of clean-coal technology."
* Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2008
NOTES: BREAKING NEWS 9/29/08 5:01 PM on inRich.com
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 30, 2008 Tuesday
Kilgores attack Obama-Biden on coal
BYLINE: Tyler Whitley, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Sep. 30--The Kilgore twins pounded the Democratic ticket of Sens. Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr. yesterday for what they called doublespeak on coal.
Former Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore and his identical twin brother, Del. Terry G. Kilgore, R-Scott, said Biden said he did not want any more clean-coal plants in the United States only days before he touted the benefits of coal during an appearance in Southwest Virginia.
The Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, looking for an edge in a Virginia contest that appears too close to call, has taken out a radio ad in Virginia and three other battleground states saying that the Democrats' position would cost Virginia thousands of jobs.
The ad is running in Southwest Virginia, Harrisonsburg and Roanoke. Thousands of people are employed in coal-mining in Southwest Virginia.
The area generally votes Republican in presidential elections, but Obama and Biden have made visits to that area, hoping at least to cut into GOP margins there.
"No coal plants in America? No jobs in Virginia? No energy independence for America?" the ad asks.
After a campaign appearance in Ohio, Biden, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, was shown in a video telling a coal protester: "No coal plants here in America. We're not supporting clean coal."
Clark Stevens, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, noted that Obama has received the endorsement of the United Mine Workers of America.
"Barack Obama's record of support for coal as an important step in our path to energy independence is clear and unequivocal," he said.
"As president, he's going to invest $150 billion over 10 years in clean-energy initiatives, and that includes money to help speed the development of clean-coal technology."
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: September 30, 2008
ACC-NO: 20080930-RV-Kilgores-attack-Obama-Biden-on-coal-0930
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Washington Post
September 30, 2008 Tuesday
Met 2 Edition
House Rejects Financial Rescue, Sending Stocks Plummeting
BYLINE: Jonathan Weisman; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
A bipartisan rebellion in the House killed a $700 billion rescue plan for the nation's financial system yesterday, sending global stock prices plunging, prompting fierce recriminations on the presidential campaign trail and dealing President Bush his worst legislative defeat.
House Democratic and Republican leaders vowed to go back into negotiations to devise compromise legislation to stabilize the credit markets, but no talks were scheduled. After U.S. financial markets closed, with the Dow Jones industrial average down a one-day record of 778 points, or 7 percent, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. tried to calm frazzled traders, assuring them that work on a market intervention would resume.
"I will continue to work with congressional leaders to find a way forward to pass a comprehensive plan to stabilize our financial system and protect the American people by limiting the prospects of further deterioration in our economy," he said. "We've got much work to do, and this is much too important to simply let fail."
Rarely has a congressional vote held such high drama and produced such immediate repercussions, directly from the House floor to the trading floor. Wall Street traders huddling around television screens watched lawmakers denounce the bailout legislation, and then sent the Dow plummeting. Stocks had recovered somewhat by the time the vote was gaveled to a close, but jittery investors sent them plunging again as Republicans and Democrats took turns blaming each other for the defeat. In a few hours, $1.2 trillion in paper wealth was wiped out.
As lawmakers in Congress pointed fingers, the collapse of the world's financial markets only built steam. Brazil's main stock index lost more than 9 percent on the news of the U.S. congressional vote, and fears spread that other emerging markets could feel the credit crunch. European bourses fell earlier in the day as a result of the financial struggles of major European banks, and regulators from Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg moved to rescue the European banking and insurance giant Fortis. And Citigroup stepped in to buy Wachovia's banking operations for $2.16 billion, making it the dominant bank in the Washington area.
On the 228 to 205 congressional vote, 140 Democrats voted yes and 95 voted no; 133 Republicans opposed the measure, while 65 approved.
"The Democratic side more than lived up to its side of the bargain," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said of the Democrats: "We're going to reach back out to them. We're going to be talking to our members and see how we can come together in the next few days to reverse whatever negative impact there may be in the economy over the next few days because Congress has failed to act."
Yesterday, Bush called nearly every member of Texas's Republican delegation, GOP aides said. He won over four of the 19.
Congressional leaders and the White House faced several options, none of them palatable just weeks before a heavily contested presidential election. Democratic leaders could choose to return with a measure guaranteed to win more Democratic votes, even at the expense of Republican support. Instead of simply purchasing distressed assets from financial institutions, some Democratic economists favor injecting lenders with cash in exchange for stock, letting the institutions figure out what to do with the mortgage-backed securities and other troubled assets weighing down their books.
A Democratic bill would also include more money for homeowners in or facing foreclosure and would change the bankruptcy law to allow judges to adjust mortgage repayment terms. But Democratic leaders would have to ensure that the measure could survive a filibuster in the Senate and would be signed by the president.
Republicans were advocating slight changes to the bill that could attract a handful of new votes. Party members might be enticed by a measure that would allow businesses to write off more past losses on this year's taxes or a more robust expansion of mortgage insurance, financed by banks. Democrats could add more assistance to ailing state and local governments without raising too many GOP objections.
In the thick of the presidential campaign, the collapse of the deal left Washington buzzing with recriminations. Republicans -- from Sen. John McCain's top economic aide to the House GOP leadership -- initially blamed Pelosi, saying her floor speech castigating Bush administration "policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system" poisoned the atmosphere and invited partisan retribution.
In truth, few Republicans were on the floor to hear that speech, and those who were there showed no signs of discomfort, as they often do. Republican leaders backed away within hours, conceding they never had the votes they had promised.
Democrats found strength in numbers, saying nearly two-thirds of their members voted for the bill. If anyone is to blame for a record sell-off on Wall Street, Democrats said, it was the party that provided just 65 votes.
Nowhere were the recriminations fiercer than on the presidential campaign trail. McCain, the GOP nominee, had been prepared to claim credit for the measure's passage, attributing it to his decision to suspend his campaign last week and engage in negotiations.
"I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now," he said at a rally in Columbus, Ohio. "Senator Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced," he said of his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama. "At first he didn't want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation."
When two-thirds of the House Republican Conference voted no, the McCain camp changed its pitch. Not a single member of McCain's home-state Arizona House delegation voted for the bill.
"Just before the vote, when the outcome was still in doubt, Speaker Pelosi gave a strongly worded partisan speech and poisoned the outcome. This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior domestic policy adviser.
Obama campaign aides gleefully shared a quote from McCain's chief political strategist, Steve Schmidt, who said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press": "What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all of the parties to the table, including the House Republicans, whose votes were needed to pass this."
Obama delayed a campaign event in Westminster, Colo., to speak to Paulson and Pelosi, then told his audience: "One of the messages I have to Congress is, 'Get this done, Democrats; Republicans, step up to the plate.' "
For Bush, the defeat was the starkest sign yet that a president who once had lockstep support among congressional Republicans has all but lost his influence. He has had vetoes overridden, on a water projects bill and a major agriculture measure, but nothing to compare to the defeat of a measure he had said was critical to the nation's economy. In the days before the vote, the president addressed the nation about the urgency of the plan, spoke out daily, even summoned congressional leaders and the two presidential candidates to the White House.
The divisions in both the Republican and Democratic ranks that had bedeviled negotiators simply could not be mended that easily. House Republican leaders acknowledged they let Pelosi put the bill on the floor with at least a dozen Republican votes still needed. But they thought they could win them over, with stock prices falling and time running out.
Conservative Republicans who have been decrying the bailout never wavered in their opposition, nor did liberal Democrats who saw the measure as a rescue plan for Wall Street millionaires. And House members in tough reelection bids abandoned the legislation in droves.
Opponents included the most endangered Democrats, including Reps. Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.), Nick Lampson (Tex.) and Nancy Boyda (Kan.), and the most endangered Republicans, from conservative Marilyn Musgrave (Colo.) to moderate Lincoln Diaz-Balart (Fla.). Democrats Mark Udall (Colo.) and Tom Udall (N.M.), both running for Senate seats, voted no. Low-level members of the Republican leadership, such as Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.), defied their senior leaders. African American Democrats with virtually no prospect of defeat voted no en masse.
Still, with the options declining and their members eager to get home to campaign, congressional leaders insisted they would not adjourn for the year without some kind of stabilizing legislation. The shock waves of the House defeat are expected to rock world markets this morning. Already, the carefree attitude that international bankers had been taking has begun to give way, with the European Central Bank moving an extra $173 billion into European markets yesterday.
"What happened today cannot stand," Pelosi said. "We must move forward, and I hope that the markets will take that message."
Staff writers Paul Kane, Anne E. Kornblut, Michael D. Shear and Perry Bacon Jr. contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 30, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Dayna Smith For The Washington Post; "The Democratic side more than lived up to its side of the bargain," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with Rep. Rahm Emanuel.
IMAGE; By Lucian Perkins For The Washington Post; Republicans, from left, Trent Franks (Ariz.), Steve King (Iowa), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) leave a news conference after talking about why they voted no.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 30, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
Democrats See the Pros and Cons of Letting Biden Be Biden
BYLINE: Perry Bacon Jr.; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A06
Introducing Sen. Barack Obama at a rally in Detroit on Sunday, his running mate did not hold back.
"John McCain said he'd follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. "Well, let me tell you something: President Barack Obama will follow him to where he lives and then send him to hell."
Biden's latest ad-lib drew laughter and cheers from the crowd, but there has been a downside to the Democratic vice presidential nominee's freewheeling style: a string of comments that either don't reflect campaign positions or misstate basic facts.
Unlike his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Biden has not been shy about talking to reporters, but comments he has made since Obama chose him last month have presented Democrats with their own problems and revived the longtime senator's reputation for gaffes.
In an interview with CBS News that aired last week, Biden described how Franklin D. Roosevelt had appeared before the country on television in 1929 to explain the stock market crash. But Herbert Hoover was president in 1929, and televisions sets did not start appearing in American homes until a decade later.
In that same interview, asked about an Obama campaign commercial that mocked Sen. John McCain's lack of computer skills, Biden called the ad "terrible." A few hours later, after McCain's campaign highlighted the remark in several news releases, Obama aides put out a statement under Biden's name in which the senator from Delaware said he had not personally seen the commercial and did not have any concerns once he watched it.
The next day, confronted with a interview in which Biden had said he opposed the bailout of the insurance company American International Group, a move that Obama supported, the Democratic nominee said that "I think Joe should have waited" before commenting.
And Obama aides spent much of the week defending the candidate's backing of the construction of "clean coal" plants, after a video surfaced on the Internet that showed Biden at a campaign event saying he opposed clean coal. The coal industry is a major employer in Ohio and Pennsylvania, two key swing states where Biden is doing much of his campaigning, and Obama has pledged support for coal plants that emit less carbon dioxide than traditional plants.
The McCain campaign has jumped on the remarks to attack Obama, and the Republican National Committee has started a "Joe Biden Gaffe Clock" that includes dates and video of the senator's comments, which also have included repeated references to brigades of soldiers as "battalions."
"If this race is close, any mistake can be really exploited," said Dan Bartlett, a former top adviser to President Bush who is supporting McCain. "He has this unique capability for someone who is so smart on the issues making these mistakes."
David Wade, Biden's spokesman, defended his boss's "straight talk," adding: "Unlike other campaigns that sequester running mates, we'll proudly continue to unleash Joe Biden to be Joe Biden."
Obama himself has defended Biden, telling NBC last week, "I am very proud of the choice that I made."
And Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's communications director, rejected any suggestion that Biden's role in the campaign would be reduced or changed, calling him a "huge asset" who was "in the battleground states, dominating the media coverage."
Some Democrats have suggested -- as Biden himself did recently -- that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would have been a better choice as Obama's running mate, but on the whole the party appears satisfied with him.
Kiki McLean, who was an adviser on Clinton's campaign and served on the staff of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) when he was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000, said Biden's gaffes were "very human moments."
"He's very on-message on foreign policy and the economy," she said.
Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who advised the senator from Delaware during his own primary campaign, called the controversial remarks "Biden being Biden." Lake said focus groups of non-college-educated white voters, a group that has been a weak point for Obama, suggest Biden is helping sell Obama to skeptical audiences despite his occasional gaffes.
Biden has long been known for speaking for too long and making occasionally odd remarks, such as when he declared Obama "the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy" when Biden launched his White House bid in early 2007. A few months earlier he had spoken of the prevalence of Indian accents in Dunkin' Donuts and 7-Eleven stores.
Initially hailed by the party as someone who would add experience as well as appeal to key voting groups such as Catholics, Biden has drawn little attention in recent weeks, crowded out of the media spotlight first by Palin and now by the financial meltdown.
Biden often travels with fewer than a dozen reporters, and even his aggressive attacks on McCain have generated little attention in national news, although Obama aides point out he often makes the front pages of local newspapers in the cities he visits. At the same time, many of those papers ran stories about his coal comments this week as well.
Bartlett, who is not formally involved with the McCain campaign, described Biden as "a rhetorical train wreck." He added: "Every utterance matters. But when he was announced I considered him to be a very good pick, and I haven't really changed my opinion."
LOAD-DATE: September 30, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Jason Reed -- Reuters; Barack Obama is joined by Joseph R. Biden Jr. last week in Greensboro, N.C. Biden brings foreign policy savvy but also a reputation for gaffes.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
September 30, 2008 Tuesday
Sarah, Sarah, Sarah!;
Which Palin will show up at the debate?
BYLINE: By Tara Wall, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! Why does everything have to be about Marcia - my inner 70s child chimes over and over, echoing the words of "Jan" the awkward, middle child of the iconic Brady Bunch. John McCain has got to be feeling a little like Jan, who just got her due.
Sarah, Sarah, Sarah! It's all about Sarah. And like the gorgeous "big sister" everyone loved to hate - so too is the sentiment toward Sarah Palin after a particularly disastrous interview last week with CBS' Katie Couric. The alarms bells sounded - but went unnoticed amid the economic turmoil - until a restless press began picking up on the dissension within Republican ranks.
I actually noticed what was happening over two weeks ago and said then on CNN, what many are saying now: that the campaign needs to stop overscripting her, stop overcoaching her, and let Mrs. Palin be herself.
But some critics have taken it a bit farther. Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker is calling on Mrs. Palin to "bow out" in her column on National Review Online. Not only is that an extreme view, but most certainly sends the worst kind of message. How's that for strong leadership? When a woman gets a little ruffled during a television interview (or two) - it means she is ill-equipped and we should just kick her to the curb? She may not be a "Hillary Clinton," as another conservative columnist proclaimed, but that is exactly why so many conservative Republicans and Democrats like her. She is NOT Mrs. Clinton, but more like the neighbor next door who understands everyday America, is smart and strong enough to lead, and not an angry woman with an ax to grind or vendetta to take out against an entire political party.
It is clear, however, that Mrs. Palin is having problems. For one, the McCain campaign needs to let Mrs. Palin admit that foreign policy is not her strength - and stop forcing her to pretend that it is. It doesn't make her less capable (if that were the case why is Barack Obama still in the race?) and it doesn't mean she can't be effective when or if called upon to interact with foreign leaders. She is not Dick Cheney, we know that. She should remind voters that Mr. McCain is the master on foreign policy, he leads on the ticket and that his knowledge (as further cemented in the first debate) will go a long way in straightening her "quick study" learning curve. Also, that she has a record of leadership - executive leadership - and as such has given us a glimpse of how she governs. She should talk about what it takes to lead and how her record as a reformer equips her as vice president, whether the issue is foreign affairs or health care.
That brings me to my second point. Mrs. Palin has conducted numerous solid, informed interviews as governor of Alaska; she can do them as a vice presidential nominee. This is not her first time in "prime time" or on national television. Campaign advisors need to cool their jets and give her breathing room. Voters identify with Mrs. Palin because of who she is - not what the campaign wants her to be. She cannot be all things to all people. Americans don't want or expect a robotic Barbie doll. They want the call-it-as-I-see-it hockey mom who also exhibits the keen judgment to make important policy decisions as executive leader of a prosperous state.
Having worked with some of these same people, during Bush/Cheney '04, who are now coaching Mrs. Palin, the "overhandling" doesn't surprise me. It is what campaigns do for the sake of message control and it is not always effective for every candidate. Even less so when you have two self-proclaimed "mavericks" on the ticket whose style and individuality make them so compelling. They can't be kept in a box.
Mrs. Palin should stop letting her advisors boss her around and take a stand. If, as columnist Bill Kristol suggested on Fox News yesterday, Mr. McCain himself has come down hard on his advisors for the way they are "handling" Mrs. Palin - that is a good thing. Acknowledgment is the first step to recovery. She can and must recover.
Recall the reworking of Michelle Obama? Early on, she came off as an off-the-cuff, "not proud of my country" angry black woman. Whether true or not, the Obama campaign knew it had a problem when polling revealed Mrs. Obama's high negatives. They began to not only limit her ad libbing but tweaked her remarks and speaking engagements, orchestrated interviews such as her visit to the "View" and re-worked her entire appearance to present a softer, more feminine and demure persona. It worked.
While I don't subscribe to the "all is lost" cries by some of my conservative counterparts for Mrs. Palin, a retooling is certainly in order. Not to the same extent as Mrs. Obama's, but I agree with the NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez, that the campaign needs to "free Sarah Palin."
This Thursday's vice presidential debate is an opportunity for the governor to break the chains, reclaim herself and re-introduce the candidate we admired at her introduction. She can rule the day.
Tara Wall is deputy editorial page editor of The Washington Times. twall@washington times.com.
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September 30, 2008 Tuesday
Negative ads everywhere, nowhere;
Public rarely sees the harsher ones
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: PLUGGED IN - POLITICS; B01
Those who study political ads say this year's presidential campaign could rank with the most negative ever, but here's the secret: A lot of the nastiest, harshest ads are released to the press but aren't airing that much on regular television.
From dirty campaign connections to dirty energy, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama daily announce new, harsh, usually negative ads and Web videos, which dutifully get airtime on cable news networks and grab ink in newspapers. However, regular voters - those outside the few million political junkies - are getting a completely different diet of ads.
"That stuff is getting very little airtime," said Evan Tracey, founder of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ad spending. Mr. Tracey said many of the ads that are getting attention on cable news amount to little more than "video press releases" designed to keep their candidates in the news cycle.
"A lot of these things are clearly being fed in to have the candidates' unfiltered take on the news of the day so they can be churned through these content machines," he said.
Meanwhile, most of the ads the campaigns are buying are far less acerbic and focus on two or three basic messages. For instance, Mr. Tracey said, Mr. McCain's most prominent single ad in the early part of September was a positive spot touting himself and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, as mavericks, while Mr. Obama's most prominent ad linked Mr. McCain to President Bush.
What it signifies is that campaigns have learned how to play the system. They know the more outrageous a claim, the more likely it is to earn free airtime on newscasts and coverage in newspapers. Or, as Mr. Tracey puts it, "There's this food-fight media out there, and the ads are the tomatoes."
During the Democratic National Convention, the McCain campaign announced a new ad every morning, and though it didn't put much advertising muscle behind them, the ads got plenty of airtime because of saturation coverage of the conventions.
The deceptive campaign claims aren't limited to ads, though the commercials are among the most egregious.
Take immigration, an issue on which Mr. McCain, of Arizona, led the push for an overhaul, and which Mr. Obama, of Illinois, clearly supported. In Spanish-language ads, the candidates accuse each other ofhaving struck nefarious alliances with opponents to try to attack immigrants or scuttle the bill for which both voted.
In their English ads, the campaigns are just as loose with the facts - so much so that four of Mr. McCain's ads in the past three months have earned a "pants-on-fire" rating from PolitiFact.com, as has one of Mr. Obama's. Another three McCain ads have earned the slightly less damning "false," and seven were labeled "barely true," compared to two of Mr. Obama's earning "barely true."
The explosion in coverage has been accompanied by a jump in the number of self-appointed fact-checkers.
In addition to PolitiFact.com, a joint project of Congressional Quarterly and Florida's St. Petersburg Times, and FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, news organizations and even bloggers have set up their own ad-checking systems. Associated Press runs regular "AdWatch" stories, while The Washington Post's Fact Checker doles out "Pinocchio" based on how deceiving it assesses an ad to be.
Among the most egregious ads this year, judging by the outrage from the self-appointed fact-checkers, is Mr. McCain's ad "Education."
The ad accuses Mr. Obama of being in favor of "learning about sex before learning to read" because he supported a bill that extended age-appropriate sex education to all levels of Illinois schooling, including kindergarten. The ad also combines criticism of Mr. Obama's education record from Education Week and several daily newspapers.
PolitiFact.com rated the kindergarten claim in the ad "pants-on-fire" wrong, and called the Education Week quote "barely true" because it was taken out of context. FactCheck.org called the ad "a factual failure," while other columnists and commentators said it was worse than the 1988 Willie Horton ad.
The ad is not without its defenders, however. Byron York of National Review reviewed the bill in question and talked with sponsors and concluded that Mr. Obama deserves to be challenged on the education bill because it would, in fact, have required kindergartners to learn about avoiding sexual abuse.
The sole Obama ad to earn "pants-on-fire" was his immigration attack, the Spanish-language ad that accused Mr. McCain of siding with talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, an opponent of the immigration bill. The ad also used quotes out of context to suggest Mr. Limbaugh was insulting immigrants.
John Geer, a professor at Vanderbilt University who studies negative ads, said fact-checking is difficult, and much depends on what facts the checker brings. Mr. Geer pointed to ads in 2004 about the economy and said one could conclude from job numbers that the economy was poor but would conclude from gross domestic product that the economy was booming.
"The problem I have with the fact-checkers is it's the negative ads that have the facts in them, and they end up only talking about the negative ads. And then, what's a fact?" he said.
Mr. Geer said it's not clear this year is the most negative in tone. He pointed to harsh ads in the 1964 campaign and to still harsher charges tossed about in the 1948 campaign as potentially tougher.
"My sense is that what surprises me about this year is there doesn't seem to be as many positive ads," he said. "Whether or not they're nastier, that is unclear."
He said the press attention to negativity could be a reaction of pundits and reporters looking for an explanation why, with so much of a political tail wind, Mr. Obama does not have a larger lead.
"I'm wondering if in fact some of the reactions are 'Obama should be up by more, based on all the fundamentals, and he's not,' " Mr. Geer said. "If Obama was up by 10 points in the polls, would people be worrying about this as much?"
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Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 29, 2008 Monday
Kilgore brothers criticize Obama, Biden on coal
BYLINE: Tyler Whitley, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Sep. 29--The Kilgore twins pounded the Democratic ticket of Sens. Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr. yesterday for what they called "double speak" on coal.
Former Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore and his identical twin brother, Del. Terry G. Kilgore, R-Scott County, said Biden said he did not want any more clean coal plants in the United States only days before he touted the benefits of coal during an appearance in Southwest Virginia.
The Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, looking for an edge in a Virginia contest that appears to be too close to call, has taken out a radio ad in Virginia and three other battleground states saying that the Democrats' position would cost Virginia thousands of jobs.
Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, said the ad is running in Southwest Virginia and Roanoke. Southwest Virginia employs thousands of people in the coal-mining industry.
The area generally votes Republican in presidential elections, but Obama and Biden have made visits to that area, hoping at least to cut into GOP margins there.
"No coal plants in America? No jobs in Virginia? No energy independence for America?," the ad asks.
At a campaign appearance in Ohio, Biden, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, was shown on a video telling a coal protester: "No coal plants here in America. We're not supporting clean coal."
Clark Stevens, a spokesman for Obama, noted that Obama has received the endorsement of the United Mine Workers of America.
"Barack Obama's record of support for coal as an important step in our path to energy independence is clear and unequivocal," he said.
"As president, he's going to invest $150 billion over 10 years in clean energy initiatives, and that includes money to help speed the development of clean coal technology."
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 29, 2008 Monday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
New polling system tracks viewers' instant impressions of debate System taps text and instant messages to gauge impressions
SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. D5
By David Spett
The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)
Among the millions of Americans who watched Friday's first presidential debate, 2,000 were armed with a cell phone or computer mouse.
Those viewers were part of a new system that embraces text messages and Web questions as a way of polling voters on the fly. Traditional polls are conducted by phone interviews and are more accurate but take several days.
These results are instant - registered long before spinmeisters start trying to shape public opinion.
"America's opinion should be America's opinion, and it should be developed based on what Americans saw, not based on what pundits tell them they saw," said Glenn Kessler, president and chief executive officer of HCD Research, which conducted the study. The Flemington, N.J.-based firm is working with Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa.
Here's how it worked: Paid participants were to receive several text messages or pop-ups on their computers asking them to evaluate each candidate's response to debate questions. Their opinions were to be published at MediaCurves.com immediately after each question was asked.
Christopher Borick, a pollster at Muhlenberg who's working with Kessler, said the technology offers advantages over traditional polling methods, including the capacity for surveying vast numbers of people at once, even from the comfort of their homes.
"Individuals have access from multiple locations," Borick said.
G. Terry Madonna, professor of public affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., said text-message and Web polls have to improve before they replace traditional polling methods.
"It probably is the way forward," Madonna said, "but the difficulty is making sure that you've got a representative sample" that reflects voters' views with scientific certainty.
Kessler also studies the effects of campaign TV advertisements on voters' impressions of candidates. In these studies, participants move their mouse from left to right on a continuum to register their opinion of an ad's believability. So far this year, Democrat Barack Obama's ads have outscored Republican John McCain's slightly in terms of perceived believability.
Kessler said Howard Dean's scream after losing the 2004 Iowa caucus inspired him to develop the real-time mouse and cell technology. He watched the speech live on television and, based on what TV analysts said immediately afterward, had no idea how the viewing public would respond.
"Polling has not changed since 1950," Kessler said, "yet technology has changed."
If his technology is adopted widely, the role of pundits might change.
"Instead of interpreting how people should have responded," Kessler said, "the pundits can interpret why they responded the way they did."
Madonna defended the craft of instant interpretation, saying pundits play an important role in democracy. He referenced a 1976 presidential debate between Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican Gerald Ford in which Ford said, "There is no Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe."
The statement was inaccurate, but most viewers did not realize it until pundits said so, Madonna said. Immediate polls showed the debate a tie; subsequent polls, after news of Ford's comment circulated, showed Carter ahead.
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The Washington Post
September 29, 2008 Monday
Regional Edition
McCain's Lost Chance;
Obama Holds His Own on Foreign Policy
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A19
September began as John McCain's month and ended as Barack Obama's. McCain's high-risk wagers aimed at shaking up the campaign turned into very bad investments. And Friday's debate eliminated McCain's best chance to deliver a knockout blow to an opponent whose most important asset may be his capacity for self-correction.
McCain is supposed to own the foreign policy issue -- and he should have owned Friday's debate. During their respective primary battles, McCain was a better debater than Obama, who could be hesitant, wordy and thrown off his stride.
But the Obama who showed up at Ole Miss was sharper and more concise than the man who frequently lost debates against his Democratic foes. He was also resolutely calm in standing his ground against McCain, whose condescension became a major talking point after the debate. If Al Gore suffered from his sighs during the 2000 debates, McCain will be remembered for his supercilious repetition of seven variations on "Senator Obama doesn't understand."
This gave special power to Obama's peroration about McCain's "wrong" judgments on going to war in Iraq. McCain's dismissal of Obama brought back memories of how advocates of the war arrogantly dismissed those who insisted (rightly, as it turned out) that the conflict would be far more difficult and costly than its architects suggested.
McCain's derisive approach may help explain why the instant polls gave Obama an edge in a debate that many pundits rated a tie -- and why women seemed especially inclined toward Obama. CNN's survey found that 59 percent of women rated Obama as having done better, with just 31 percent saying that of McCain.
An Obama adviser who was watching a "dial group" -- in which viewers turn a device to express their feelings about a debate's every moment -- said that whenever McCain lectured or attacked Obama, the Republican's ratings would drop, and the fall was especially steep among women.
But if the debate was indeed a tie -- and McCain certainly looked informed and engaged once the discussion moved from economics to foreign affairs -- this would count as a net gain for Obama. A foreign policy discussion afforded McCain his best opportunity to aggravate doubts about his foe. That opportunity is now gone.
As for the first 40 minutes devoted to the economic crisis, Obama was more forceful in addressing public anxieties. He used the occasion to tout his middle-class tax cut that a large share of the electorate doesn't even know he's proposing. Obama's campaign quickly went on the air with an ad noting that McCain did not once mention the words "middle class" during the discussion.
Thus ends a month that began with such promise for McCain. His choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate at the end of August created a fortnight of excitement among Republican loyalists who were less than enthusiastic about McCain. Some said Palin would also enhance his appeal to female voters and help him recast his candidacy as a maverick's crusade.
But it was a reckless choice. Palin has proved herself to be spectacularly unprepared for a national campaign and embarrassingly inarticulate and unreflective. She is held in protective custody by a campaign that trusts her less and less. A few conservatives have suggested she should be dropped from the ticket.
Then came McCain's abrupt foray into Washington's negotiations over a Wall Street bailout bill. His showy call for postponing Friday's debate was serenely rebuffed by Obama, and McCain was forced to retreat. The candidate with 26 years of congressional experience lost a test of wills to an opponent with just four years on the national stage.
And when McCain intervened in the rescue package discussions, his position on the matter was muddy. This champion of bipartisanship briefly stood up for a House Republican minority that was battling against a bipartisan accord largely accepted by his Senate Republican colleagues, and then he pulled back. The McCain who had once allied with such liberals as Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold was suddenly flirting with an approach to the economic rescue that was recommended by Newt Gingrich.
The post-Labor Day period has thus brought the campaign to an unexpected point.
McCain, once the candidate of tested experience, must now battle the perception that he has become the riskier choice, a man too given to rash moves under pressure. Obama, whose very newness promised change but also raised doubts, has emerged as the cool and unruffled candidate who moves calmly but steadily forward. However one judges the first debate, it did nothing to block Obama's progress.
postchat@aol.com
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The Washington Post
September 29, 2008 Monday
Suburban Edition
'Substantive' Press Is Taken for a Spin
BYLINE: Howard Kurtz; Washington Post Staff Writer
David Axelrod was surrounded by a pack of camera-toting, mike-wielding, pushing-and-shoving media types, one of whom asked whether his man Barack Obama had been "too nice" in the just-completed debate with John McCain.
"I don't think he was too nice. . . . There were clear differences. . . . He made a very strong case, absolutely," the onetime newspaperman said in his meandering style.
Twenty feet away, McCain operative Steve Schmidt was robotically hammering home a single number.
"Senator Obama was right tonight when he said John McCain was right 11 times. . . . It was a home run for Senator McCain. . . . The person who is losing the debate, the person who is on defense, is the person who says his opponent is right 11 times," the shaved-head strategist declared.
Obama may have won the insta-polls after Friday's debate here at the University of Mississippi, but the McCain team won the spin war, a postgame ritual that quickly seeps into the punditry enveloping such events. What was equally striking, inside the massive media tent, was that some of the journalists who profess to want an elevated debate on the issues -- which is precisely what they got, courtesy of moderator Jim Lehrer -- seemed unusually interested in style points.
Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody asked Axelrod about the "body language," saying: "John McCain didn't make eye contact at all." Another reporter wondered whether McCain had been "patronizing" in dismissing Obama's lack of foreign-policy experience. A third asked whether McCain had hurled "insults" at his opponent.
Perhaps the debate's sober tone -- lacking such memorable one-liners as "There you go again" or "You're no Jack Kennedy" -- left the journalistic handicappers searching for a more personal way to score the session. They disdain the predictable partisans who show up afterward, but these advocates -- from Madeleine Albright and Rudy Giuliani -- didn't lack for attention.
"The spin is something we should pay less attention to, but it's important because it can change the story line," says NBC's Andrea Mitchell.
"I find most of what these people say about exceeding expectations to be total baloney," says CNBC's John Harwood.
"I guess it'd be news if someone came out and said, 'My guy did just awful,' " says CBS's Bob Schieffer.
The spinning began in earnest hours before the debate. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham insisted to a group of reporters that his close friend McCain had done the right thing in parachuting into congressional negotiations over the $700 billion federal bailout bill and threatening to abandon the debate.
"What about the criticism that Senator McCain is impetuous, kind of a drama king?" asked National Review's Byron York. Graham said McCain's participation had been "invaluable," even though the bailout talks had imploded.
"But he suggested he wasn't going to come if there wasn't an agreement," said BBC's Katty Kay. "There is no agreement."
"Do you want him here?" Graham asked. And, of course, the journalists did, or their trip to Ole Miss would have been pointless.
Ten feet away, John Kerry -- who would have been mobbed four years ago -- looked around the tent, and when no one seemed interested in his presence, walked out.
Outside, on a summerlike evening, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs held forth for the likes of NBC's Chuck Todd and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who was wearing an Elvis T-shirt. (The company may have been more pleasant than that of McCain aides, who have barred Dowd from the candidate's plane. And the Obama camp seemed to show its media leanings when it texted followers to watch the debate -- on CNN.)
Gibbs said he was merely trying to gauge the media mood. And what would his role be afterward?
"I will be very, very frank," he said, laughing at the absurdity.
Moments after the debate, the front of the tent resembled a crowded bazaar, festooned with huge yellow signs for McCain surrogates and narrow blue ones for Obama advocates. The biggest names drew the largest crowds until the journalists grew bored and drifted off in search of better goods -- the free market at work.
While Axelrod fielded questions in one corner, McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace was surrounded by a second press pack six feet away. She lauded her boss for suggesting he would consider a partial freeze on federal spending. "That was a leadership moment," Wallace said again and again.
Minutes later the two stood awkwardly side by side, staring straight ahead at a robot camera, waiting for an interview with CBS's Katie Couric.
"Go ahead, David, spin me," Couric began.
"I don't need to spin you, Katie. . . . What you saw was one candidate making a forceful, compelling case for change," Axelrod said.
When her turn came, Wallace -- who was working with Couric last year as a CBS commentator -- said: "What was exposed tonight was a leadership gap, a judgment gap and an experience gap." Then she was back to McCain's "bold" spending freeze.
As the McCain team rushed out a Web ad featuring Obama repeatedly saying McCain was right about this or that, Fox's Sean Hannity, MSNBC's Chris Matthews and other TV hosts picked up the point -- a twist that left Obama press secretary Linda Douglass shaking her head.
"I can't believe that anyone is criticizing someone, in this hyperpartisan environment, for being gracious enough to acknowledge where there are areas of agreement," the former ABC correspondent said. "I find it surprising that journalists would be raising questions about a candidate who is capable of acknowledging that his opponent has a point."
Then she pivoted to how Obama had won a "commanding victory" on "John McCain's home turf."
Palin Gets Panned
Sarah Palin has been struggling in her own debates -- with network anchors. While the Alaska governor hardly drew rave reviews for her interview with Charlie Gibson, her sit-down with Katie Couric last week opened the floodgates of criticism, even from conservatives.
Palin was halting, repetitive and occasionally stumped on basic questions. And the worst moments -- boasting again, Tina Fey-like, of Alaska's proximity to Russia -- have been endlessly replayed on other networks and the Web.
It may have been a turning point for Couric, who was persistent without being overbearing, in shedding early doubts about her ability to be a commanding presence in the CBS anchor chair. And the worst may be yet to come for Palin; sources say CBS has two more responses on tape that will likely prove embarrassing.
While some journalists say privately they are censoring their comments about Palin to avoid looking like they're piling on, pundits on the right are jumping ship. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough says Palin "just seems out of her league." National Review Editor Rich Lowry called her performance "dreadful." Dallas Morning News columnist Rod Dreher described the interview as a "train wreck." Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker urged Palin to quit the race, saying: "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."
The interview is drawing extraordinary attention because of the McCain campaign's calculated decision to shield Palin from reporters. No vice-presidential nominee in modern history has been this inaccessible to the media, reinforcing the perception that she can't hit major-league pitching. When the networks balked at recording Palin's photo ops with foreign leaders at the U.N. last week unless journalists were allowed in -- and a CNN producer was granted access for all of 29 seconds -- the no-press dictum degenerated into farce.
Palin was buoyed for weeks by negative and sometimes unfair coverage, particularly about her family situation, that turned her into a sympathetic figure. But the Couric and Gibson interviews were the first real test of whether she could do more than read a punchy speech off a prompter. And even many of her supporters are no longer trying to spin her performance.
Not Too Bright
The rhetoric gets heated this time of year, but Paul Begala, the CNN commentator, went way over the line in calling President Bush a "high-functioning moron."
The former Bill Clinton aide can be a witty partisan, but there are 50 ways he could have ridiculed Bush's capacity to govern without using such a slur. Begala, though, is undeterred: "I said it. I meant it. I don't regret it. . . . You cannot imagine the positive feedback I've gotten."
Howard Kurtz hosts CNN's weekly media program, "Reliable Sources."
LOAD-DATE: September 29, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Talking it up: McCain's Steve Schmidt, left, and Obama's David Axelrod.
IMAGE; Talking it up: McCain's Steve Schmidt, left, and Obama's David Axelrod.
IMAGE; Cbs News Via Associated Press; After her performance in an interview with Katie Couric last week, prominent conservatives are criticizing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
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September 29, 2008 Monday
Climate heats up lawsuits
BYLINE: By Tom Ramstack, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: PLUGGED IN - MARKETPLACE; ABOVE THE LAW; B01
Climate change spilled over into the nation's laws and policies in recent days, giving environmentalists plenty of fodder for public interest lawsuits.
Part of the problem is that everyone has a different idea on how the laws should be applied.
One of the disputes contributed to the firing of former D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer in December. She filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a lawsuit by several states against the Environmental Protection Agency. The states want the EPA to limit aircraft emissions.
D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's staff was upset that Ms. Singer filed the brief without first consulting them, which was one of several disagreements that preceded her departure.
Last month, the District joined 12 states in another lawsuit against the EPA. It seeks to force the federal agency to use its authority under the Clean Air Act to limit emissions from oil refineries that contribute to global warming.
State global warming initiatives include caps on industrial and transportation emissions in Florida and California, mandatory recycling by state agencies in Wisconsin and incentives for businesses to use energy-efficient lighting in Colorado.
"There's a laundry list for every state," said Tony Kreindler, spokesman for the Environmental Defense Fund advocacy group.
The federal government made its latest environmental effort last week when the Senate approved tax credits for use of energy-efficient equipment, despite warnings from some Republicans the credits would add to the deficit.Internationally, a shrinking Arctic ice sheet has opened commercial opportunities that demand the United States participate in an international treaty on the law of the sea, said John Norton Moore, a University of Virginia law professor specializing in the law of the sea.
He is one of more than half a dozen law professors gathering this week in Los Angeles to discuss how global warming and receding Arctic ice are challenging federal and international lawmakers.
Mr. Moore is scheduled to be a speaker during the seminar on Arctic sovereignty this week at Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles. A State Department attorney also plans to attend.
Eventually, a Northwest Passage above Canada and Alaska's northern shores would result in a "reduced cost of shipping," Mr. Moore said. "That in turn would reduce the cost of certain imported goods."
In addition, the northern continental shelf of Canada and Alaska could offer "substantial oil and gas reserves" as the ice clears, he said.
In the competition between nations to make the first grab at oil and gas exploration, disputes have arisen about who gets the rights to which piece of property.
Legal disputes are supposed to be determined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Mr. Moore said.
"It's been a very popular subject lately," he said.
In California and elsewhere, global warming is a very unpopular subject with real estate developers.
Environmental groups have been suing them under the 1970 California Environmental Quality Act, which requires developers to document the extent to which their projects could affect the environment.
The law does not specifically mention global warming, but environmentalists say it is implied.
The courts are trying to define limits of the law. So far this year, six rulings have split on whether developers must assess the extent their projects contribute to global warming.
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have similar laws to limit greenhouse gas emissions, providing a wealth of opportunity for more environmental lawsuits.
Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have joined the fray. They both want to develop new low-pollution technologies and cap greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. McCain wants to set of a goal of a 66 percent reduction by 2050. Mr. Obama wants an 80 percent reduction by 2050.
* Above the Law runs on Mondays. Call Tom Ramstack at 202/636-3180 or e-mail tramstack@washingtontimes.com
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September 29, 2008 Monday
BYLINE: THE WASHINGTON TIMES
In a time of economic peril for our nation and of evidence of abuse by people Americans trusted with their funds, your staff writers produce a front-page story with a quote from an ad for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain "McCain ad links Obama to old Chicago corruption," Tuesday).
The first problem is that campaign ads are textbook demonstrations of distortion. However, even if the claims contain a modicum of truth, they pale alongside a true story that is directly related to the financial meltdown. It is a fact that Mr. McCain was one of those charged with abuse of power in what became known as the Keating Five scandal, wherein Mr. McCain used his congressional power in an effort to save Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association from government action.
Mr. Keating was no ordinary constituent to Mr. McCain. On Oct. 8, 1989, the Arizona Republic revealed that Mr. McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before Mr. McCain met with the regulators.
The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby sitter, had made at least nine trips at Mr. Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental Corp. jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Mr. Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat.
Mr. McCain did not pay Mr. Keating for some of the trips until years after they were taken, after he learned that Mr. Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433.
For The Washington Times to ignore the Keating Five scandal when it was an obvious precursor to the problems we face today is outrageous. Integrity and credibility are as important in our press as they are to good government. Shilling for the McCain campaign ought not be your mission.
JOAN SALEMI
West Springfield
LOAD-DATE: September 29, 2008
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September 29, 2008 Monday
Verdict on the debate: America wins
BYLINE: By Larry J. Davis, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; PURPLE NATION; A04
When all is said and done, it was a draw. As former senior McCain adviser Mike Murphy told David Gregory of NBC/MSNBC after the debate: "No game-changer: We're going to have a rematch."
For Sen. John McCain, however, a tie seemed like a good outcome compared with the previous few days.
Said a McCain team adviser, quoted in Mike Allen's column in Politico on Saturday: "The debate was a tie, but it turned the page from our erratic handling of the bailout negotiations. A 'McCain sunk the economy with a political stunt' narrative is now ancient history. Now we get an improved bailout deal, calmer markets, and praise from House conservatives. We're here back even and live to fight another day."
I expected the John McCain who showed up at Ole Miss to be unprepared, tired, frazzled - and looking and acting like all of the above.
I was wrong.
Mr. McCain impressed me greatly all night - his civility, his dignity, his presidential demeanor. He started out by expressing concern for the great Democratic liberal lion, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who had been hospitalized.
He was strong and serious, yet not overbearing. He was tough on the issues and in contrasting his positions with those of Sen. Barack Obama - but respectful in his references to Mr. Obama (though, oddly, he seemed not to ever look directly at Mr. Obama, as Chris Matthews seemed to point out 56 times in 10 minutes of post-debate commentary).
Mr. Obama's low point was when he tried to explain why he had said, in answer to a question asked during an early debate in the Democratic primaries, that he would be willing to meet with the five dictators of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria and North Korea "without preconditions ... in
the first year of his presidenc " (That was, in fact, the precise question, to which Mr. Obama answered simply, " I would.")
Mr. Obama has many times since explained that what he meant to say was he believes in negotiations with hostile governments and didn't mean his answer to be interpreted literally.
But Mr. McCain pressed the point, and Mr. Obama tried to say that former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger agreed with his position on U.S.-Iran discussions without preconditions. However, Mr. Kissinger over the weekend made the obvious point that this involved diplomats below the level of the president himself.
Mr. McCain repeated the line "Senator Obama doesn't understand" a few times too many. The problem with the phrase, which was used to reinforce the argument that Mr. Obama is inexperienced and not ready to be president, is that Mr. Obama came across exactly the opposite: steady, knowledgeable, decisive, confident, presidential.
A potentially embarrassing post-debate factoid about Mr. McCain put out by the Obama operation has been to remind voters that Mr. McCain not once during the 90-minute debate used the term "middle class" (leading to an overnight ad by Mr. Obama's rapid-response team titled "Zero" ). On the other hand, the McCain campaign points out that Mr. Obama never used the word "victory."
As for Mr. Obama's performance, during the primaries when I was a strong supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, there were often times that he seemed unsure of himself, halting in his speech, sometimes indecisive - at least in the early Democratic debates.
Not any more - and certainly not Friday night. Mr. Obama was better than I have ever seen him. He clearly bettered Mr. McCain during the early exchanges on the economy.
He was more specific with facts on his tax cuts benefiting 95 percent of those earning under $250,000 a year - reinforcing populist themes that the polls show are gaining traction, especially in the middle of popular outrage over a proposed bailout of $700 billion in taxpayers' money to rescue some investment bank executives from poor business decisions.
Even on foreign policy, Mr. Obama sometimes seemed to have the upper hand in the area of Mr. McCain's strength. The high point was Mr. Obama's repeated use of the word "wrong" to describe Mr. McCain's early support for going to war in Iraq - "wrong" about weapons of mass destruction, "wrong" that the U.S. would be greeted as liberators, "wrong" about not foreseeing the inevitable civil war between Sunnis and Shi'ites, "wrong" about Iraq (rather than Afghanistan) being a prime theater to attack al Qaeda.
But Mr. McCain had an effective counter, pointing out that Mr. Obama had finally admitted that the "surge" in Iraq had been a success after months of denying it.
Bottom line about the performance of both men (forgive me for quoting my own words from my first column in this space, explaining the chosen theme "Purple Nation" ):
"In Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, we have two candidates - honest, independent-minded, with high integrity and respect for each other - who, if they mutually are determined, can get our politics back into the fact-driven solutions business ...
"During the coming campaign, both
can engage in an honest debate between liberal and conservative approaches, or a mixture of the two, that informs the American people about the tough choices that must be made to solve our nation's most difficult problems .
"With such an honest debate about real choices from our two presidential candidates in 2008, the country will be better informed and ready for the challenges that face us, no matter who wins - based on partisanship about principles and bipartisanship to find solutions."
That is what happened Friday night.
As my oldest son, Seth, an early and dedicated supporter of Mr. Obama, put it to me after the debate late Friday: "Both of them made me proud to be an American."
Amen. Now let's hope the vice-presidential debate and the next two presidential debates follow the same path of honest debate and respectfully agreeable disagreement, with the American people ending up the winners.
* Lanny Davis is a prominent Washington lawyer and a political analyst for the Fox News Channel. From 1996 to 1998, he served as special counsel to President Clinton. From 2005 to 2006, he served on President Bush's five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
LOAD-DATE: September 29, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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September 29, 2008 Monday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE POLITICS; A08
Deferential
"A few minutes after the debate between John McCain and Barack Obama ended here on the campus of the University of Mississippi, I asked close McCain adviser Charlie Black whether Obama had performed as McCain's debate team had anticipated," Byron York writes at National Review Online (www.nationalreview .com).
" 'No, no,' Black said emphatically. 'I never expected [Senator] Obama to spend the entire debate on the defensive, and he did. He did.'
"Maybe there was a tad of exaggeration in Black's verdict, but there was some truth in it, too. Obama was smooth, unflappable, and just a little off balance for much of the evening. Worse for him, he seemed inexplicably eager to concede that McCain was right on issue after issue. A candidate determined to appear congenial might do that once, or even twice, but Obama did it eight times ...
"Add it all up, and Obama was undeniably, and surprisingly, deferential to a man who in
the past Obama has said 'doesn't get it' Moments after the debate ended, I asked David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, whether Obama had simply been too nice (not a question one often gets to ask in these situations). 'The bottom line is, I don't think the American people want us to disagree just for the sake of being disagreeable,' Axelrod told me. 'I think he made a very strong case, absolutely.'
"Well, you wouldn't expect Axelrod to admit that his guy messed up. But here's a prediction: The next time McCain and Obama meet in debate, on October 7 in Nashville, start a drinking game in which you take a big swig every time Obama says, 'John is absolutely right.' I'll bet you get to the end of the debate without ever lifting a glass."
Older voters
"Barack Obama should be thankful that the Wall Street crisis is dominating the news these days, because otherwise more people might notice that he has been uttering manifest falsehoods about John McCain's Social Security plan - in a bid to woo the potentially pivotal senior voters who remain cool to Obama's historic candidacy," the Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Dick Polman writes.
"While on the stump in Florida last weekend, Obama contended that McCain's talk of Social Security privatization could leave seniors destitute: 'If my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week. Millions would have watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes.'
"Obama lied. No such nest eggs would have disappeared, because the McCain plan exempts every American born before 1950. I could also detail the Obama TV ad on Social Security that has been aired in Florida, Pennsylvania and five other states - it falsely claims that McCain favors 'cutting benefits in half' - but here's the point:
"The Obama camp has apparently decided that the candidate needs to scare senior Americans into voting for him, because he doesn't appear to be connecting with enough of them any other way. Voters 65 and older are less charmed by Obama than any other age bracket; their resistance - particularly in battleground states such as Florida (the grayest state), Pennsylvania (second grayest), and Ohio (eighth) - is a potentially serious drag on his November prospects."
Fact-checking
"In its print review (not available online, so far as I can tell) of [Friday] night's debate, The Washington Post 'Fact Checker' column continues its role as a propaganda arm of the Obama campaign," Ed Whelan writes at National Review Online (www.natonalreview.com).
"1. Reporter Michael Dobbs, who previously accused the McCain campaign of 'clearly exaggerating wildly' when it accurately quoted the Post, says that McCain 'raised an old Republican canard when he asserted that Obama's [health care] plan would eventually turn the system over to the federal government.'
Dobbs finds it conclusive that Obama 'is not advocating a state-run health care system.' But respected expert opinion ... argues that the inevitable effect of Obama's plan would be a 'full government takeover' Dobbs need not embrace that conclusion, but it is absurd for him to dismiss it breezily as a 'canard.'
"2. An item by reporter Glenn Kessler says that McCain 'seriously misstated his vote concerning the Marines in Lebanon.' You see, McCain says that he voted against sending the Marines to Lebanon, and Kessler says that they were already there and that McCain voted only against authorizing their continued deployment. I'm not sure why anyone would consider this distinction significant. McCain's point was that he was correct in believing, in advance of the terrible Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon that killed 241 American servicemen, that the Marines shouldn't be there.
"3. Obama falsely claimed in the debate that [chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] Adm. Mike Mullen had not called Obama's withdrawal plan dangerous. Unlike the items on McCain, the 'Fact Check' account does not begin with, or even include, a simple declarative statement that Obama's claim was false. Instead, it leaves it to the careful reader to piece together the facts."
Feeling a 'rout'
"McCain didn't need to just win the debate [Friday] night, he needed to disqualify Barack Obama - demonstrate that Obama wasn't ready and wasn't a safe choice," Democratic operative Joe Trippi writes at www.huffingtonpost.com.
"McCain did his best with a flurry of 'you don't understand.' 'that's dangerous,' 'very dangerous' and 'naive.' But Obama was still standing - and the guy that looked a little scary was McCain," Mr. Trippi said.
"That is why this is beginning to feel like a rout to me. McCain would want us all to be going into the final month of the campaign having serious doubts about Barack Obama. Instead it is McCain's actions that are causing doubts to rise about McCain's own candidacy.
"Picking Sarah Palin was a bold move - I urged taking her pick seriously - but her recent performance is raising doubts about McCain's judgment. The erratic behavior of his campaign over the past week - suspending his campaign - left most scratching their heads and asking what ... was that about?
Disastrous Then in the debate [Friday] night there was John McCain ready to take anyone on - Russia, China, North Korea, Iran - all of them, and then turned and said Obama didn't get it. In my view, McCain may have sounded more dangerous to voters as he tried so blatantly to make them think Obama wasn't a safe bet in this very 'scary' world."
*Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washington times.com.
LOAD-DATE: September 29, 2008
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 28, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
McCain stays in touch on bailout discussion;
He contacts the leading negotiators working on the financial rescue plan
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-10
Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who earlier this week rushed to Washington to help broker a deal on stabilizing U.S. financial markets, stayed in contact with negotiators yesterday as they inched toward an agreement.
Senior adviser Mark Salter said the Arizona senator spent the morning at his campaign headquarters placing calls to congressional leaders and White House officials involved in finalizing a multibillion-dollar deal to bail out failing financial firms. Earlier in the week McCain suspended most campaign activities to help develop a bipartisan agreement.
"He can effectively do what he needs to do by phone," Salter said yesterday. "He's calling members on both sides, talking to people in the administration, helping out as he can."
McCain arrived in Washington about 4 a.m. from Oxford, Miss., site of the first presidential debate. He and his wife, Cindy, emerged from his suburban condominium shortly past noon and drove to his campaign headquarters.
The campaign of Democratic rival Barack Obama promptly criticized McCain. "Now the McCain campaign says he can negotiate the bailout by phone?" spokesman Tommy Vietor asked in a statement e-mailed to reporters. "If this is the case, why did Sen. McCain suspend his campaign?"
Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, complained that McCain's presence had helped derail a potential deal. McCain aides and some congressional Republicans said he had helped the process by ensuring House Republicans earned a fair hearing for an alternative bailout plan they were proposing.
McCain jolted the political world Wednesday when he announced he would forgo most campaign activities to work on the bailout deal. He hinted he might not participate in Friday's debate with Obama if a deal weren't reached, but he changed his mind and flew to Mississippi within hours of the event.
Aides said McCain had decided to go to the debate because was satisfied a framework for an agreement was in place.
McCain canceled campaign events in Ohio throughout the weekend to deal with the financial crisis before world markets open tomorrow. He planned to address a meeting of the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance in Ohio via satellite.
McCain also began airing a new ad, "Promise," suggesting that Obama had voted against funding for U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama has, with one exception, voted for Iraq troop financing but voted against a funding bill in 2007 because it did not contain language calling for a troop withdrawal.
The McCain ad includes a quote from Obama's running mate, Joseph R. Biden Jr., saying Obama had made a "political point" by voting in 2007 against the troop funding bill.
ILLUSTRAITON: PHOTO
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 28, 2008 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Obama, McCain trade jibes about middle class
By Jesse J. Holland
The Associated Press
FREDERICKSBURG
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama sought to score a post-debate advantage Saturday by traveling to two Republican-leaning states and accusing GOP rival John McCain of being out of touch with middle-class Americans.
"We talked about the economy for 40 minutes, and not once did Sen ator McCain talk about the struggles middle-class families are having," Obama told more than 26,000 people who stood out in the rain with him on the campus of the University of Mary Washington.
While Obama was out campaigning, McCain stayed in the Washington, D.C., area monitoring by phone the congressional negotiations on a deal to stabilize U.S. financial markets.
Obama did this monitoring while on the campaign trial, with aides saying he spoke by phone to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., as negotiators inched toward a deal.
"Unlike Sen ator McCain, it didn't take a crisis on Wall Street for me to realize that people are hurting," Obama said.
McCain harshly criticized Obama's debate performance Saturday in a speech to the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance.
"It wasn't such a good night for my opponent," McCain said, saying, among other things, that Obama was trying to use the looming market meltdown for political gain.
"It was clear that Senator Obama still sees the financial crisis in America as a national problem to be exploited first and solved later," McCain said.
Obama returned to Washington on Saturday night for a Congressional Black Caucus dinner before taking off again to day for campaign stops in Michigan, a crucial battleground state.
Earlier Saturday, Obama debuted his post-debate attack on McCain with a campaign swing through North Carolina, another traditionally Republican state, like Virginia, where Obama hopes to make inroads.
The Illinois senator repeatedly took McCain to task for not talking about any plans to help the middle class in the midst of the country's financial and fiscal crisis.
"Through 90 minutes of debate, John McCain had a lot to say about me, but he didn't have anything to say about you," Obama told the cheering 20,000-plus crowd at the J. Douglas Galyon Depot in downtown Greensboro. "He didn't even say the words 'middle class.' He didn't even say the words 'working people.'\"
The Obama campaign tried to back up that point in its newest ad, a spot released Saturday that also notes that McCain didn't mention the middle class during the debate.
"McCain doesn't get it," the announcer says. "Barack Obama does."
McCain's campaign suggested Saturday that the Arizona senator had referred to the middle class in the debate when he argued that Obama had voted in favor of higher taxes on families making $42,000 a year and proposed hundreds of billions in spending that would burden families and businesses. Obama disputed both of those assertions and said that 95 percent of American taxpayers would not pay more in taxes under his plan.
"If he was honest, Barack Obama knows he was unable to debate the merits of supporting higher taxes on the middle class, and bloated government spending during a looming economic crisis - it simply proved indefensible last night," McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.
Appearing with Obama on Saturday, running mate Joe Biden called McCain's judgment wrong on every important issue .
"At this moment in history, we need more than a brave soldier. We need a wise leader, and that man is Barack Obama," said Biden, a Delaware senator.
LOAD-DATE: September 28, 2008
GRAPHIC: Alex Brandon | The Associated Press Sen. Barack Obama attends a rally in the rain on Saturday at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. He told crowds that McCain ignores working people. Gerald Herbert | The Associated Press Sen. John McCain places calls Saturday from his campaign office in Arlington. He told the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance that Obama sought political gain from the nation's financial crisis.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
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The Washington Post
September 28, 2008 Sunday
Every Edition
Too Good To Be True? It Usually Is.;
Snopes.com Sniffs Out What You Can Believe
BYLINE: Monica Hesse; Washington Post Staff Writer
This election has been hard on all of our inboxes.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's (cut and pasted) head on a patriotically bikini'd bod? Sen. Barack Obama cluelessly chatting on a (Photoshopped) upside-down phone? Sen. John McCain identifying himself -- according to a totally mangled forward -- as a "war criminal"?
Gotta be fakes, all of them. Right?
Because why would a grown man hold a phone upside do-- well, then again, it wouldn't be the first time a politician was a doofus maximus. So maybe, just to be on the safe side. . . .
Which is why no inbox has had it harder in these last frenzied weeks than the one belonging to David and Barbara Mikkelson, the founders and sole researchers at urban legend mega-site Snopes.com.
The couple debunked each of the myths above, along with dozens more allegations ranging from the wacko (a claim that the Bible identifies Obama as the antichrist) to the wonko (a widely circulated comparison of the two candidates' tax plans).
Snopes receives 6.3 million site visits a month, according to media measurement company Quantcast, and about 600 e-mailed research requests a day from desperate voters who don't know What. To. Believe.
"Usually it's around 400," says Barbara, 49. "But, election season." She sighs.
"A lot of people don't realize," David, 48, says wearily, "that our site is just two people."
Working out of their living room.
And so the confused masses write. And writeandwriteandwrite. Not always about politics, though in recent weeks politics has dominated the site. Forget about Cokelore, forget about Glurge -- two classic Snopes categories. Currently Palin, Obama, Sen. Joe Biden and McCain, in that order, top the "Hottest 25 Legends," a compilation updated daily of the terms generating the most reader e-mails and user searches.
This confused and earnest quest for the truth is why the Mikkelsons refuse to classify any request as stupid. It's not about stupidity. It's about desperation. Studies have shown that people will believe anything that's repeated multiple times, which, in these days of mass e-mails, constitutes just about everything. It makes getting to the bottom of something a battle between our real desire for truth and the limits of our neurological makeup.
Occasionally, the most bizarro queries end up being true. Sort of. Yes, Barack Obama did say that he'd visited 57 states during his campaign. But according to the video footage David and Barbara provide, it appears to be a flub born of exhaustion: He had actually visited 47. The Mikkelsons found no evidence, FYI, that Obama was secretly referring to the 57 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Each of their sources is cited, each of their entries is marked with a color-coded circle standing for true or false (and occasionally, undetermined).
Ah, Snopes. What a stalwart it has become, a sort of go-to intellectual Drano clearing out the apocryphal political sewage that clogs our brains more and more each day.
It's morphed into its own verb -- Snopesed, Snopesing, Snopesifying -- part of an information-overloaded election where stuff needs to be fact-checked, where believing everyone is lying seems more like smarts than paranoia. "I was Snopesing about last night," a user on a parenting message board writes in wonder, "and I discovered that the bulk of [Cindy McCain's] good deeds are more than just right-wing wonkery."
It's a one-sentence rebuttal to even the bat-craziest of e-mail forwards: Dude. Snopesify that junk.
Such oracle-like power was not the original intent of David and Barbara, who met cute in 1994 on a user group dedicated to discussing urban legends. Barbara moved from Ottawa to be with David, setting up a rudimentary Snopes in their Los Angeles area home. Their site takes its name from a particularly pernicious family peopling a William Faulkner trilogy -- and papering academia with hundreds of doctoral dissertations.
A few years ago, David left his job as a computer programmer to join his wife in full-time myth-busting (income is from ad space purchased on the site), and recently they hired an assistant whose sole job is reading through the massive piles of nutty that seem to signify everything from mudslinging partisanship to the death of satire.
Just the other day, they received a note from someone wanting to know the veracity of a newscast entitled "2008 Election Results Leaked," in which a voter complains, "If you can't trust the shadowy overlords that run your election, who can you trust?"
The video was from the Onion, a satirical newspaper whose current headlines include "No One on SWAT Team Wants to Wait in Ventilation Duct With Howard."
The Mikkelsons, who consider themselves apolitical -- Barbara's still Canadian -- opted not to debunk that particular story. They try to reserve precious Snopesifying man-hours for the stories they think have the most legs, the highest likelihood of going viral.
But they couldn't overlook another query, not after it was e-mailed by dozens of concerned readers. Branded as a series of Palin quotes, the document contained such ramblers as, "God made dinosaurs . . . so that when they died and became petroleum products we, in his perfect image, could use them in our snow machines, pickup trucks and fishing boats."
This text, as you, dear elite intellectual reader, may have suspected, is meant to be a joke. The Mikkelsons traced it to a blog labeling it as satire, not once but three separate times.
And yet, the e-mails came: "Does Sarah Palin really believe that dinosaurs are lizards of the Devil?"
"After you've received a few hundred e-mails like these," says David, "you figure that even if it looks obvious it's not obvious to everyone. . . . There's never anything so ridiculous that at least some people won't believe it."
It's ironic that Snopes is receiving more research requests than ever, says David, because most of what people are looking to verify isn't that hard to find. Although some rumors still require library visits or the combing of city records, many others can be put to bed with a few e-mails or a Googling of an online primary source. (Nothing compared with the three weeks of solid research Barbara says she once spent addressing an e-mail asserting that Bill Clinton had arranged for the deaths of 50 opponents.)
Still, some people, apparently exhausted from trying to sort through anything themselves, completely give up.
"People will forward us the entire text of a New York Times or Washington Post editorial, wanting to know if it's true," says David. "What can you say beyond, 'Well, it's someone's opinion.' "
Or, he says, people will e-mail a document asking, Did someone really write this? Obviously someone wrote it, he wants to tell them. Because you just sent it to me.
"It's kind of flattering and kind of scary," he says. "We never had any intent of becoming political screens -- it just kind of snowballed."
"The only reason we do politics," says Barbara, "is that we get so many political inquiries that it finally becomes easier just to answer them." If they ignored them, she says, those forwards would just keep clogging their inbox, again and again and again.
LOAD-DATE: September 28, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; The Web site is crowded with tales of the candidates in the presidential race.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 28, 2008 Sunday
Met 2 Edition
McCain Ready for A Change Of Subject;
Credit Crisis Has Given Obama a Distinct Edge
BYLINE: Dan Balz and Shailagh Murray; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
In the two weeks that the Wall Street financial crisis has dominated the political debate, the presidential race has shifted from what had been essentially a dead heat to one in which Sen. Barack Obama has opened up a narrow but perceptible advantage nationally, as well as in a number of battleground states.
The burden now falls on Sen. John McCain to reverse the effects of the focus on the economy, and to keep the contest close enough so that a dominant debate performance, a gaffe by Obama or some outside event can shift the momentum back to him.
Although Friday's debate in Oxford, Miss., produced no outright winner, strategists in both parties said the coming weeks, which will include three more debates -- two between McCain and Obama and the third between vice presidential candidates Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. -- could be decisive in determining whether the election remains on a trajectory favorable to Obama or shifts back toward too-close-to-call status.
McCain advisers are well aware that the past two weeks have brought a shift in the race, but they say that between now and Election Day, there is plenty of time for the fortunes of the two candidates to change again.
"The first lesson of this campaign, going back to 2007, is not to be panicky or reactive to poll numbers," said McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt. "A few weeks back, we had a clear lead, albeit a narrow one, and there were a lot of people on the Democratic side haranguing the Obama campaign in the sense of panic. We always understood not only would that lead dissipate but bounce back the other way and then bounce back again."
For McCain, the danger is that previously undecided voters will become comfortable that Obama is ready to be president. The longer Obama can hold even a small lead, the more difficult it will be for McCain to reverse it, absent something unexpected happening. McCain's best hope, strategists said, is for the crisis atmosphere around Wall Street and the credit markets to lessen, allowing the campaign debate to focus on other questions as much as the economy. The agreement reached early this morning on Capitol Hill about a Wall Street relief package may help with that.
Schmidt said the campaign will press two arguments as forcefully as possible in the coming days. One is that Obama is not ready to be commander in chief and that, in a time of two wars, "his policies will make the world more dangerous and America less secure." Second, he said, McCain will argue that, in a time of economic crisis, Obama will raise taxes and spending and "will make our economy worse."
Obama signaled yesterday that his focus will be on painting McCain as out of touch on the economy. Appearing at a rally in Greensboro, N.C., Obama ripped into his rival's remarks about the economy during the debate -- but more for what McCain didn't say.
"The truth is, through 90 minutes of debating, John McCain had a lot to say about me, but he had nothing to say about you. He didn't even say the words 'middle class.' Didn't say the words 'working people,' " Obama told a cheering crowd of about 20,000 people on a rainy morning. He later appeared in Fredericksburg, Va., and spoke at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner in Washington. [Story, A14.]
The middle-class omission also is the subject of an Obama television ad that the campaign rolled out yesterday, asserting: "McCain doesn't get it. Barack Obama does."
McCain, who returned to Washington immediately after the debate, remained largely out of sight yesterday. Aides said he was working the phones with congressional leaders, monitoring the pace of negotiations over a financial rescue package that officials hope to have ready for a vote by the beginning of the week. They argued that without his input, the package under consideration earlier last week was doomed to fail.
But strategists said McCain will be challenged to reverse current trends, particularly in a year in which voters are gloomy about the state of the country and are looking for a change in direction after eight years of President Bush's policies.
"What begins to happen is that the margin that's been in place begins to solidify more and more," said Matthew Dowd, who was Bush's chief strategist in 2004 and is now an independent analyst. "There's only two ways this can go," he added. "It will either solidify with an Obama four- to five- point lead, or it will loosen and go back to close and go back and forth."
Both campaigns launched a war of ads and news releases yesterday as each side claimed victory in their first general-election showdown, held at the University of Mississippi.
The McCain campaign e-mailed four "volumes" of reviews about his performance, described by various pundits and editorial writers as "emphatic," "assured" and "authoritative."
Obama aides said the Democratic nominee cleared a major hurdle with undecided voters by projecting confidence, giving crisp answers and standing his ground when pressed by McCain on a range of foreign policy issues, including the fate of Iraq and Afghanistan and the challenges posed by Russia and Iran.
Overnight polls suggested Obama had won, although the samples in one case were tilted toward Democrats.
Obama and McCain will not debate again until Oct. 7, but Palin and Biden will meet in St. Louis on Thursday for their only debate. Palin had an immediate and positive effect on the race when she was chosen, but that has dissipated over the past two weeks. She struggled through an interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric last week, and polls show rising unfavorable ratings, including among independent female voters. As a result, Palin faces a major test in the debate against the more experienced Biden.
The second presidential debate will have a town hall format, which makes combat between the two candidates more difficult. If the race stands essentially as it does today by the time of the third debate on Oct. 15, strategists predict a fierce and confrontational 90 minutes. By then it will become clear whether McCain made the right decision politically to suspend most campaign activities last week and return to Washington to get involved in the financial package negotiations. Aides hope that, if Congress passes a rescue package, McCain's actions will be seen as having contributed to the deal. More important, they hope an agreement will push the economy story off the front pages for a while.
Their hope is to keep things fluid for the next few weeks.
"You've got to get it over with and start having a normal campaign," one McCain adviser said. "I think you can't make any campaign judgments until this is over.
Murray, traveling with the Obama campaign, reported from North Carolina.
LOAD-DATE: September 28, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Scott Olson -- Getty Images; Aides to Sen. John McCain say there is time for their candidate to erase Sen. Barack Obama's lead. But the economic crisis is not helping the Republican.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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September 28, 2008 Sunday
Obama labels McCain as uncaring;
Cites lack of references to 'middle class'
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG, Va.
Sen. Barack Obama couldn't hold an umbrella over the 26,000 who waited hours in the mud to see him speak Saturday, so he joined them in getting soaked.
The Democratic presidential nominee and running mate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. held a full rally here despite the downpour Saturday night, telling voters in swing-state Virginia that Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain doesn't get their struggles.
Mr. Obama - sticking to his new stump speech that noted Mr. McCain did not use the phrase "middle class" once during the previous evening's first presidential debate - at first offered to take care of the dry-cleaning bills for the drenched voters.
Then he joked he needed the money for the campaign and asked them to consider it a contribution, prompting laughter. He worked campy rain metaphors into his speech several times, promising change may not be easy and it may seem "the sky is dark and rains will never pass," but "as long as we're in it together, there's nothing we can't do."
Mr. Biden put on a baseball cap while Mr. Obama took his jacket off, leaving his white shirt soaked through by the end of the rally.
Earlier in Greensboro, N.C., Mr. Obama charged that on "issue after issue - from taxes to health care to the war in Iraq - you heard John McCain make the case for more of the same policies that got us into this mess."
"Just as important as what we heard from John McCain was what we didn't hear from John McCain," he said.
"The truth is, through 90 minutes of debate, John McCain had a lot to say about me, but he had nothing to say about you. He didn't even say the word 'middle class.' He didn't say the word 'working people.' "
The line of attack echoed a new campaign ad released after the debate titled "Zero," as in the number of times Mr. McCain referred to the middle class Friday night.
The McCain campaign released its own ad highlighting all the times Mr. Obama said the Republican was "right" during the debate and charging that Mr. Obama is not ready to lead on his own.
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said he found that line of attack "puzzling."
"Only someone who's been in Washington for 26 years would put that ad out," Mr. Plouffe told reporters on a conference call, adding that his boss "is not afraid" to say when he agrees with his opponent.
"Voters in the battleground states who are undecided actually responded very well" to that line, he said.
Mr. Biden, who will get his turn on a debate stage Thursday, lauded Mr. Obama's performance in his first one-on-one encounter with Mr. McCain.
"Last night, America looked, and it didn't just see a winner, they saw the next commander in chief," Mr. Biden said. Foreign policy and national security were "supposed to be John McCain's turf, and Barack Obama owned it last night."
During a riff of his standard "change is more than a slogan" line, Mr. Obama said he'd noticed his rival using the phrase "need to turn the page," something Mr. Obama has been saying for 20 months on the campaign trail.
"Come on, John," he said. "Pretty soon I'm going to have to start saying I'm a maverick. You've got to come up with your own stuff."
Mr. Obama also alluded to tightening polls suggesting red North Carolina may be in play for the Democrats, asking voters to help the campaign.
The Democratic ticket spent the day in the two red states they have visited often in an attempt to turn them blue Nov. 4.
Mr. Plouffe insisted the next debate Oct. 9 in Tennessee offers Mr. McCain another "home-court advantage" since it's a town hall and the Republican has done more town halls than any presidential candidate "in history" and is the "undisputed champion" of the format.
"Maybe we'll concoct a reason to suspend our campaign," Mr. Plouffe quipped.
Meanwhile, Mr. McCain largely continued his campaign suspension Saturday, telephoning members of Congress to win their support for a Wall Street bailout package that he hopes to have sealed before world financial markets open Monday. The Obama campaign dryly noted that he could have made calls from anywhere in the country and had no need to suspend his campaign last week.
Mr. McCain fired off an acerbic critique of Mr. Obama's debate performance, ripping his rival over his economic policy and attitude on the war in Iraq, in a speech by satellite to the Ohio meeting of the Sportsmen's Alliance, a hunting and shooting lobby group.
"It was clear that Senator Obama still sees the financial crisis in America as a national problem to be exploited first and solved later," Mr. McCain said.
"This is a moment of great testing, when the future of our economy is on the line."
Mr. McCain's campaign ads returned to the airwaves despite the senator's absence from the campaign trail. A new ad, "Promise," notes that Mr. Obama voted against funding U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq because the 2007 bill did not include a withdrawal timetable. The ad quotes Mr. Biden calling Mr. Obama's vote an attempt to make a "political point."
* The article is based in part on wire service reports.
LOAD-DATE: September 28, 2008
GRAPHIC: Sen. Barack Obama's supporters gather at a rally Saturday in Greensboro, N.C. His running mate lauded Mr. Obama's debate performance of the night before. [Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]
RALLYING THE VOTE: Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama and running mate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. addresses supporters in Greensboro, N.C., Saturday, the day after the first debate. [Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
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September 28, 2008 Sunday
Obama ad dubs McCain win 'bad news'
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
DATELINE: GREENSBORO, N.C.
Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has painted the "Bad News" picture of a John McCain victory in a new Web video aimed at getting record voter turnout.
The YouTube video features a mock MSNBC projection that Sen. McCain "wins" the Nov. 4 contest with 51 percent, to 49 percent for Mr. Obama.
"John McCain elected 44th president" and "Voter turnout lower than expected" are the mock captions with an MSNBC "Breaking News" headline under a smiling Mr. McCain.
"It doesn't have to be that way," flashes across the screen before the clip sends voters to the campaign's VoteforChange.com site. It urges them to use the site to "register to vote, request to vote absentee, find your polling location."
The spot, titled "Bad News," features NBC's Tom Brokaw talking about an end to "one of the most bitterly contested presidential campaigns in modern memory representing stark differences" of ideas about the "future in this country."
An unidentified newscaster can be heard saying, "John McCain's victory has been projected by NBC News." Then the video shows Mr. McCain, with wife Cindy at his side in a green dress.
He tells the crowd: "Thank you! Let me tell you, I'm very happy."
The audio appears to be from Mr. McCain's introduction of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, though she is not shown or mentioned in the clip.
In recent days, the Obama campaign has used celebrities from Queen Latifah to Kal Penn to tout the site, which gives voters information about polling places and registration deadlines.
LOAD-DATE: September 28, 2008
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Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 27, 2008 Saturday
State Edition
Financial questions hang over debate;
McCain agrees to appear with Obama in what could be a turning point of campaign
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-1
The crucial first debate between John McCain and Barack Obama gained an even brighter spotlight last night as a financial bailout package was debated and the contenders traded recriminations over McCain's involvement in it.
It wasn't clear until late yesterday morning that the 9 p.m. EDT debate at the University of Mississippi would take place. That's when McCain, who had asked to postpone the forum until Congress and the Bush administration reached an agreement to stabilize U.S. markets, reversed himself and agreed to go ahead.
Obama had said he would attend no matter what McCain decided to do.
The debate, expected to reach a huge viewing audience, was supposed to focus on foreign policy, a topic generally viewed as a McCain strength. But given the roiling economic situation, moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS indicated he wouldn't be constrained by the boundaries the two campaigns negotiated months ago.
The debate was crucial for both Obama and McCain, their first encounter before a national audience in a race that remains exceedingly close just over five weeks from Election Day.
The candidates came with different objectives and points to prove.
Obama, 47, needed to convince some skeptical voters he is ready to be commander in chief and steward of a precarious economy.
The 72-year old McCain, a 26-year House and Senate veteran, hoped to cast himself as an experienced hand in times of crisis while also distancing himself from President Bush, the unpopular leader of his own party. McCain also needed to tamp down concerns about his age.
McCain generally won praise for his debating skills during the GOP primaries, delivering answers that were crisp and to the point while getting in the occasional zinger. He also displayed flashes of temper.
There is no mention of these debates in the Constitution or in any law of the land, but over the past three decades they have become the most important events in America's presidential elections.
Both the Obama and McCain camps believe the debates could decide who wins in November - as they probably did when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in 1980, for example. Political scientists have argued that debates also helped elect Bill Clinton in 1992 and George W. Bush in 2000, and made the race close in 2004.
On the stage, said Lehrer, who has moderated more such debates than anyone, the tension is compelling. "You can smell it. It's under your arms and in your toes," he said. "It is extraordinary what these guys go through."
"It's the only event that the entire electorate can really share," Lehrer said. "And it's the only time that the candidates stand on the same stage and talk about the same subjects at the same time."
"It's a high-wire act," added Ed Fouhy, a retired television executive who was the executive producer of the presidential debates in 1988 and 1992, "and we all watch it for the same reason we go to the circus . . . to see if he falls off the wire."
The effort both camps have put into preparations for the debates reveals their importance. The candidates work harder on debate readiness than on any other campaign activity, according to participants in past efforts.
Preparation involves studying briefing books on every issue that might be raised, reviewing the opponent's past debate performances, and - for Obama at least - long hours of practice against a Washington lawyer who has spent weeks learning to debate like McCain. He is Gregory Craig, one of Clinton's defense lawyers in the impeachment process in 1998. Craig played Bush in the elaborate rehearsals that prepared Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., for his three debates. "Greg was a better Bush than Bush was," said Bob Shrum, the campaign consultant who ran Kerry's campaign. So good that "he made me angry," Kerry added in an interview.
"Debates suck up so much time," said former Sen. Bill Bradley, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, "and they create an unreal universe - in which you are supposed to be 'real.' " As Bradley's remark suggests, these are theatrical performances. Television conveys images and impressions even better than it conveys positions on issues. Viewers will see, for example, that Obama towers over McCain by nearly half a foot, perhaps an unexpected visual for many voters.
Judging by the comments made in the past in polls and focus groups, some voters will draw conclusions about which candidate appears more presidential, more commanding or more comfortable with himself.
Separately, spending on campaign commercials suggests Obama could be making inroads in states that have been reliably Republican in recent presidential elections, drawing McCain into ad wars there.
The two presidential hopefuls are scheduled to debate twice more, at Belmont University in Nashville on Oct. 7 and at Hofstra University in Hempsted, N.Y., on Oct. 15. Vice presidential contenders Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are to square off in a single debate Oct. 2 at Washington University in St. Louis.
To our readers
The presidential debate began too late for a story about its content to appear in this edition of The Times-Dispatch. For a full report, go to InRich.com, keyword: politics.
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2008
NOTES: Presidential debate 2008 Final Edition story also in Merlin
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 27, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
grab bag doonesbury By Garry Trudeau Ganging up on McCain
SECTION: DAILY BREAK; Pg. E8
"The jitters should be there 'til the last night of performing -- because the jitters are what get you onstage."
the "Harry Potter" star on his Broadway debut Thursday in "Equus" The late-night CBS comedian was upset when McCain canceled an appearance Wednesday to deal with the economic crisis. After backing out of the show, McCain sat for an interview with journalist Katie Couric, then didn't leave New York until Thursday.
At first, Letterman said, he felt like a "patriot" to let McCain off. "Now I'm feeling like an ugly date. I feel used. I feel cheap. I feel sullied."
"We deeply regret offending Mr. Letterman, but our candidate's priority at this moment is to focus on this crisis," McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace said Thursday on NBC's "Today."
Later Thursday, Letterman banged away at McCain in his opening monologue.
"You're here on a good night," he told the audience. "So far none of our guests have canceled."
He talked about daredevil David Blaine's feat of hanging upside-down in New York's Central Park for 60 hours.
"They just left the guy hanging there. It's the same thing McCain did to me last night."
He described Hilton - Thursday's guest whose celebrity was once used in a McCain campaign ad to mock Democrat Barack Obama - as McCain's first choice for a running mate.
"Here's how it works: You don't come to see me? You don't come to see me? Well, we might not see you on Inauguration Day," Letterman said.
Later in the show, Letterman couldn't resist another mention of "that John McCain" while chatting with Hilton, who replied, "I heard he dissed you. He dissed me."
Milking the moment, Letterman consoled her: "You had a little run-in with him, too, didn't you?" david letterman kept up his verbal assault on John McCain, commiserating Thursday with Paris Hilton and saying he felt like an "ugly date" because the GOP presidential candidate backed out of an appearance on the "Late Show" earlier this week. alt-shift 7 headline here and in herey ctl 5 Text goes here alt-shift 7 headline here and in herey Grammy-winning Tejano singer Emilio Navaira, still recovering from injuries suffered in a bus wreck six months ago, has been discharged from a hospital after another traffic accident.
A University Hospital spokeswoman said Navaira and his wife, Maria, were discharged late Thursday, a day after their car collided with a truck.
Known to his fans simply as Emilio, the singer has released more than a dozen albums with his band. He won a Grammy for best Tejano album in 2003 with "Acuerdate."
LOAD-DATE: September 28, 2008
GRAPHIC: Meat Loaf Name jeffrey r. staab | cbs
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The Washington Post
September 27, 2008 Saturday
Met 2 Edition
McCain's High Horse Meets Obama's High-Mindedness
John McCain wore the more presidential tie -- that much can be said for him -- but Barack Obama displayed the more presidential temperament, or the kind of demeanor people presumably would want in a president, when the two candidates met at the University of Mississippi last night for their first debate of the campaign.
Both men seemed well equipped in terms of facts and figures -- especially, as one would expect, dollar figures -- and neither made an outrageous blunder, although McCain did misidentify the new president of Pakistan. More critically, he came across as condescending and even rude to his opponent, a bit of bad behavior especially evident because Obama may have overdone the fair-minded bit in many of his remarks and answers.
Imperiously enough, McCain -- who had threatened not to show up for the debate because of America's financial crisis -- seemed determined to avoid even looking at Obama as the debate went on, although they did shake hands at the beginning and end. Many of McCain's answers were preceded with belittling references to Obama as if he were talking to a college freshman way out of his depth: "I'm afraid Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy," was one typical remark.
Obama supporters must have been displeased, then, to hear their candidate keep agreeing with McCain, a case perhaps of sportsmanlike conduct run amok. Doesn't Obama want to win?
On the matter of congressional earmarks and wasteful spending, Obama began one answer with, "Well, Senator McCain is absolutely right . . ." and later, on an issue related to the Iraq war: "Senator McCain is absolutely right . . ." etc., etc.
After all the nice-guy stuff from Obama, which may have reached self-defeating levels, it's perhaps not surprising that the most, perhaps only, electrifying moment of the debate was when he finally told McCain he was wrong -- three times in quick and effective succession. This was during debate about the origins of the war in Iraq. "You were wrong" about saying the war would be quick and easy, Obama charged, his voice rising. "You were wrong" about finding weapons of mass destruction, he continued. And there was one more "you were wrong" for good measure.
Obama was showing something that his personal appearances have too often lacked: passion. There was strong conviction behind his words, whether one agreed with them or not, and a welcome assertiveness. "You were wrong" was an effectively simple declarative sentence, not bogged down in qualifiers the way some of his sentences tend to be. "We've got to look at bringing that war to a close," he said of Iraq; why not just, "We've got to end that war"?
Although Obama was "crisper" than usual, as one commentator noted after the debate, he still may not have been crisp enough. His oratorical skills when giving speeches in vast venues have been amply demonstrated. But in debates and conversations, when he ad-libs, he sometimes seems to be weighing his answers almost too carefully, defusing his own remarks by diffusing them.
Democrat Paul Begala, one of CNN's army of pundits, criticized both candidates for the way they handled questions on the economy. The whole debate was supposed to deal with foreign policy, but as the economy shuddered and crumbled during the week, it was wisely decided to devote about a third of the debate to that crisis. But as Begala said, a stranger to this planet tuning in the debate wouldn't have known from the candidates' answers and attitudes that America is in the midst of what has been called the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.
Instead their answers were on the theoretical side, with no real sense of urgency. The folks out there in television land, losing their homes to foreclosure or seeing their retirement nest eggs obliterated, deserved more thoughtful and heartfelt answers.
The debate was moderated by public television's Jim Lehrer, who did a very accomplished job, willing to interrupt or challenge the candidates when they danced around an issue rather than addressing it. His first question was "Where do you stand on the financial recovery plan" now being debated in Washington. Both candidates merely reiterated economic policies from past speeches, with McCain preceding his response with a self-serving salute to Ted Kennedy, who was hospitalized earlier in the day.
Obama began his response with the usual bromide about America being "at a defining moment in our history." Yes yes, but how will we pay the mortgage when the interest rate goes up for the umpteenth time next month?
Lehrer took control. After the meandering palaver from the two men he said pointedly, "Let's go back to my question" and repeated it.
Since all three networks had access to the same basic pool video, some networks tried to dress up the picture with identifying decoration. NBC and CNN both had annoying animated graphics in the lower right-hand corners of the screen, just the thing for people who want to watch letters dance or globes spin around, distracting to everyone else. CNN had mercifully ditched its ticker-tape of fun facts, but replaced it with a chart that supposedly showed reactions from a sample group to the candidates' performances. The chart was hard to read and essentially useless.
CBS armed a test group of viewer-voters with "joy sticks" to measure their responses to various moments of the debate, but this gimmick also proved to be of little help. A CBS reporter interviewed one man sitting in the room; the man said he thought McCain looked "stressed." And that was that. The research measurement was done by Nielsen Media Research, it was pointed out, the same people who rate television shows. That raised the discomforting specter of equating presidential candidates with sitcoms, soap operas and reality junk.
This was reality -- the realest kind of reality -- and the debate was, for the most part, encouragingly civilized and not flawed with frivolous name-calling. As NBC's able Chuck Todd put it, "no lipstick on a pig" nonsense. If McCain had been more civil, and Obama were more combative and fervent, it would have been better still.
LOAD-DATE: September 27, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Pool Photo By Chip Somodevilla Via Ap; Barack Obama and John McCain shake hands before last night's presidential debate.
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The Washington Post
September 26, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
Tonight's Debate Still in Limbo As Blame Passes Back and Forth
BYLINE: Michael D. Shear and Jonathan Weisman; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
The first debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, scheduled for tonight, remained in limbo last night after the presidential candidates left a White House meeting without a deal on a $700 billion economic rescue plan.
Democrats immediately blamed McCain for disrupting the effort at compromise, saying his decision to suspend his campaign and return to Washington shifted the klieg lights of the White House contest to the tense and delicate congressional negotiations.
Those discussions, which had appeared promising early in the day, culminated in the late-afternoon meeting held by President Bush. But instead of producing a joint statement of success, McCain and Obama slipped out of a gathering that those present described as a contentious and unproductive session.
"What this looked like to me was a rescue plan for John McCain for two hours," said an angry Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who had all but declared the deal done earlier in the day. "To be distracted for two to three hours for political theater doesn't help."
In interviews after the meeting, Obama pointed a finger at his rival for the faltering talks, saying on CNN that "when you start injecting presidential politics into delicate negotiations, you can actually inject more problems, rather than less."
His spokesman Bill Burton was more blunt, accusing McCain of turning "a national crisis into an occasion to promote his campaign. It's become just another political stunt, aimed more at shoring up the senator's political fortunes than the nation's economy."
In response, senior McCain adviser Steve Schmidt accused Obama of playing politics, saying the negotiations had been far from resolved and challenging the Democratic nominee to "publish the list of members of Congress who were going to vote for this. Because in reality, there is not a list of a majority of Democrats and Republicans who are willing to vote for it."
McCain said he is "hopeful" that a deal can be reached soon, despite opposition from many House Republicans who have consistently balked at the bailout cost and produced a far different proposal in the 11th hour yesterday.
"There are a variety of concerns, I think a lot of them have been satisfied," McCain said on ABC's "World News Tonight" after the meeting. "And I believe and I'm hopeful that we can satisfy all of them and move forward very quickly. They are aware of the urgency."
Obama and McCain both held out hope that they could still meet in Oxford, Miss., tonight for their long-scheduled first debate as they settled in to overnight in Washington. "I think he knows that I'm going to be there," Obama said in his own appearance on ABC. But McCain's campaign said that no travel decisions had been made as of last night.
"I understand how important this debate is and I am hopeful," McCain said on ABC News.
The independent Commission on Presidential Debates said yesterday that it is "moving forward" with its plans for the face-off.
The White House meeting was the result of McCain's startling announcement Wednesday that he would cease campaigning and return to Washington, urging Bush to convene a summit to address the financial crisis. Bush did so, informing the nation in an address Wednesday night, and inviting Obama and McCain to attend.
Yesterday's photo opportunity amounted to Bush's first public appearance with McCain since May, when the two briefly shook hands on a tarmac at the Phoenix airport. The Republican nominee has sought to distance himself from the president, whose approval rating has touched new lows in recent polling, and campaign aides have said they have no plans to ask Bush to appear on the campaign trail.
McCain, Obama, administration officials and congressional leaders had hoped to emerge together from the West Wing to deliver a forceful joint statement that would at least show a display of unity behind the principle of a massive federal intervention in the financial markets.
McCain's "Straight Talk Air" landed at Reagan National Airport just after noon, and his motorcade headed toward the Senate. But even before his charter plane took off from Newark, senior Democrats and Republicans at the Capitol were already announcing that a deal in principle had been reached.
That declaration turned out to be premature, as McCain's colleagues in the House objected to the ideas presented and arrived at the meeting adamant that they had never signed on to a deal.
At the White House, the gathering turned contentious when House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) brought up a new set of principles that conservative House Republicans had been laid out earlier in the day.
Boehner's move was received poorly by Obama and the other Democrats, who quickly pressed McCain to say whether he supported Boehner's position, according to a detailed account of the meeting. McCain declined to commit, one source said.
For much of the day, McCain shuttled between meetings and his Senate office, but rarely came close to the Capitol suites and committee rooms where the negotiations were taking place. He had returned to his Crystal City condominium by 6 p.m., where aides said he continued to work the phones in support of the deal.
Earlier, McCain had emerged from his office in the Russell Senate Office Building around noon to a crush of reporters, saying nothing as he made his way to Boehner's office. In tow were a trio of his closest allies, Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), as well as top campaign aides Rick Davis and Mark Salter.
Boehner and McCain discussed the bailout plan, but Republican leadership aides described the conversation as somewhat surreal. Neither man was familiar with the details of the proposal being pressed by House conservatives, and up to the moment they departed for the White House yesterday afternoon, neither had seen any description beyond news reports.
At 1:25 p.m., McCain left Boehner's office through a back door, walking across the Capitol's rotunda to the applause of tourists. Graham conceded the group knew little about the plan the nominee had come to Washington to try to shape.
McCain ducked into the ornate Mansfield Room on the Senate side of the Capitol for lunch with colleagues. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, his chief economic adviser, met separately with the House Republicans' top four leaders. But aides said Holtz-Eakin did little of the talking. Instead, he was told in no uncertain terms that the deal touted in the morning had next to no support among the House Republican rank-and-file.
Despite the GOP nominee's pledge to suspend electioneering, the presidential campaign continued yesterday.
Democrats attacked the McCain campaign for declaring what they called a false truce, pointing to the television appearances of McCain campaign domestic policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer, who has been attacking Obama as taking undue credit for crisis management and legislative deal-making.
"This is maybe perhaps part of the pattern that we've seen before where Senator Obama would claim that the housing bill came out of his committee -- and he didn't even sit on the committee," she told Fox News.
As promised, aides said McCain's campaign ads were ordered off the air yesterday, though many remained on the air as stations struggled to comply with the last-minute decision.
"It is not a flip-the-switch kind of proposition," said Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks ad spending. "McCain is doing everything they can in their power to take these spots down. It's not like canceling a pizza."
Schmidt accused Obama of "swooping in" to buy up the advertising time that McCain had relinquished. Without offering proof, he said the Democrat was acting in a "predatory fashion" at a time when McCain sought to take a step back from politics.
"It is an example, once again, of Senator McCain putting his country first, whereas Senator Obama puts Senator Obama first, which is an essential contrast," he t said.
Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said of the McCain campaign: "They haven't suspended the rest of their campaign, so it's not surprising they haven't suspended their lies, either."
Staff writers Robert G. Kaiser, Paul Kane, Lori Montgomery and Dan Eggen contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 26, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post; Sen. John McCain, with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, arrives on Capitol Hill to discuss the financial crisis. He and rival Barack Obama left the White House meeting with no deal on a $700 billion economic rescue plan.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 26, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A23
John McCain is rapidly making his temperament an inescapable issue in the presidential campaign. Does the nation really want so much drama in the White House?
McCain's performance in recent days has been, to put it charitably, erratic. In an attempt to show leadership on the financial crisis, he has called Americans into ranks -- long after hostilities began. Meanwhile, back in much-reviled Washington, the generals with cooler heads and a clearer picture of the battlefield are doing their jobs, minus all the histrionics.
Thus far, an objective observer would have to say that Congress has behaved well in the days since Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson delivered a three-page ransom note that said, and I paraphrase, "Give me $700 billion, or I'd hate to see anything bad happen to that nice economy of yours."
Our elected representatives took seriously the urgency of the crisis. They did not fall into partisan bickering. A rough consensus began to emerge: It is important to act expeditiously but not to panic. It is unwise to give this administration -- or any administration -- a blank check with absolutely no oversight, as Paulson had sought. Paulson, the White House or somebody should explain why this plan will work and why some other plan wouldn't work better. And the corporate executives who put their companies at risk and then turn to the government for a bailout should not be rewarded with multimillion-dollar compensation packages subsidized by the taxpayers.
Negotiations between a Democratic Congress and a Republican administration on these and other points seemed to be proceeding at lightning speed, given the usual pace of such things in Washington. But then, for reasons known only to himself, in charged McCain to rescue the unimperiled. Said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who has been the lead negotiator for the Democratic majority in the House: "Now that we are on the verge of making a deal, John McCain airdrops himself in to help us make a deal."
At face value, McCain's sudden "suspension" of his campaign and his call to delay the first presidential debate can be seen as pure politics. Lately, McCain has been sliding in the polls, and Barack Obama has been rising. The Wall Street crisis markedly accelerated these trends. Late September is not the time to let your opponent widen his lead.
Changing the subject, which the McCain people have raised to an art form, wasn't an option this time -- the public is hardly in the mood for another Paris Hilton ad -- so the campaign had to try to somehow get out in front of the crisis. Given McCain's initial assessment that the fundamentals of the economy are strong, that wasn't going to be easy.
The solution was to try to make it look as if McCain were leading the heroic effort to save the American way of life. To do this, he had to portray the negotiations over a rescue plan -- which had been making orderly progress -- as stalled and in shambles. "We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved," McCain said, calling on everyone to "temporarily set politics aside."
But in trying to put himself at center stage, McCain managed to insert politics into the situation. The first issue all week on which congressional Democrats and Republicans split along party lines was whether McCain's noisy intervention demonstrated boldness or bluster.
The surest way to derail any prospect of a timely rescue plan would be to have Obama and McCain get involved in the nit and the grit of the negotiations. The reason is obvious: The two major-party presidential candidates would never really abandon the campaign with less than six weeks left before the election. They'd just be shifting it to a venue where it could do maximum damage. The anodyne joint statement from the two campaigns Wednesday highlighting the urgency of the situation was about the most constructive thing Obama and McCain could do, next to staying the hell out of the way.
McCain succeeded in focusing attention on himself, but not necessarily in a good way. Voters may see this not as an illustration of brave leadership but as another example of McCain's "ready, fire, aim" approach to dealing with any crisis. Putting himself at the center of events -- making any situation all about him -- is more than a political tactic for McCain. It's his nature, and I wonder if most Americans won't be unnerved at the prospect of electing a president who's always so ready for his close-up.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: September 26, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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September 26, 2008 Friday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE POLITICS; A06
HARD TO BELIEVE
"Now that both campaigns have lost all of their credibility by distorting each other's records and agendas, where does the 2008 presidential contest stand?" Stuart Rothenberg writes in Roll Call.
"I don't have data on this, but I'm willing to bet that at this point in the race most voters don't believe anything that they see or hear in Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) and Sen. John McCain's (Ariz.) TV ads, or from talking heads supporting the candidates. I know that I don't," Mr. Rothenberg said.
"I'm tired of the bizarre distortions and half-truths, and of the endless platitudes. McCain, the straight-talker, isn't doing that anymore, and Obama is equally bad. Both are running blatantly misleading campaigns.
"So when I see an ad, the first thing I think about is how it might be a distortion. McCain wants the war in Iraq to last at least 100 years? Obama wants to teach sex ed to kindergartners? McCain's Social Security plan would have cost senior citizens all of their retirement savings? Obama wants to raise everyone's taxes?
"How stupid do they think we are? Pretty stupid, apparently."
COMING CLEAN
"The classic definition of a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth, and specialists like Joe Biden can work wonders with the form. On Tuesday Barack Obama's running mate blew an easy question about coal, revealing volumes about liberal energy politics," the Wall Street Journal said Thursday in an editorial.
"Working the rope line in Maumee, Ohio, the senator was asked by an environmentalist why he and Mr. Obama support 'clean coal.' 'We're not supporting clean coal,' Mr. Biden responded. Then, riffing on China's breakneck construction of new coal plants, he continued, 'No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they're going to build them, over there.'
"Coal happens to be the indispensable workhorse of the U.S. power system, providing about 50 percent of the country's electricity. Many Democrats nonetheless despise coal - because of pollution before the era of scrubbers, but especially now because of carbon emissions. Al Gore favors an outright moratorium on coal-fired power in the name of climate change. Meanwhile, any scheme to tax and regulate carbon - like the cap-and-trade program backed by Mr. Obama and John McCain - would hit coal first and hardest, effectively banishing it from the U.S. energy mix.
"Mr. Biden, then, only stated an obvious if politically unutterable truth. The real costs of green ambitions won't be paid by well-heeled coastal liberals, but will fall disproportionately on the Southern and Midwestern states that depend on coal for jobs and power. The blue-collar voters of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and so forth will get hurt most - notwithstanding Mr. Biden's campaign reinvention as the scrapper from Scranton."
OVER THE EDGE
"Reading the hyperventilation about John McCain's proposal to put off the first presidential debate until the bill to address the financial crisis is solved, both pro and con, leads me to a stark conclusion: This presidential campaign has driven the political class in the United States to the brink of psychosis," John Podhoretz writes in a blog at www.commentary magazine.com.
"Calm down a little and you can see that, no matter what McCain intended by his 'suspension' of his campaign, what he is doing is relatively modest. He's not going to have rallies for a few days and he's not going to run television commercials, and he's proposing that a debate scheduled a year ago before anyone could have imagined we would be in the midst of a political-legislative-fiscal earthquake be postponed - not canceled but postponed.
"The only people on earth who are actually damaged by such a postponement are the staff of Ole Miss, where it is to take place, and the Commission on Presidential Debates, which sat around for months trying to pick just the right dates. Otherwise, could it possibly matter that the first debate might take place not on Sept. 26 but on Oct. 2? And that the vice-presidential debate might have to move from Oct. 2 to, say, Oct. 7? And that the Oct. 7 debate be moved to Oct. 22? (Yes, there might be a baseball playoff game on Oct. 22. So?) ...
"This cannot possibly be a major issue But it is being treated as though it is an unprecedented move, a desperation ploy, a brilliant political stroke, a game-changer, a Hail Mary pass - pick your cliche. Why?
"Because just like the candidates themselves, the pundit class has been living with this race foremost in their minds since January 2007. That's 20 months of pulse-taking, speech-watching, poll-studying, debate-sifting, strategy-analyzing intensity seven days a week. That really is unprecedented."
OBAMA'S ADVISERS
"It's a fact of life in Washington presidential politics: No matter how experienced you are when winning the White House, candidates and new presidents have only one source of battle-tested experts to choose from when setting new policy or hiring new Cabinet heads. And that's whoever served in the previous administration of their party," Paul Bedard writes in the Washington Whispers column at www.usnews.com.
"So, it should be no surprise that Sen. Barack Obama, who's been working on his economic positions for months, has turned to the old Clinton team that brought the country great economic wealth, until the stock market collapsed when the Internet bubble popped," Mr. Bedard said.
"The Clinton people he has been reaching out to for advice include former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, former economic adviser Laura Tyson, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, former Labor Secretary Bob Reich, and former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley. 'These,' says Obama's able spokesman Robert Gibbs, are the 'core of people he speaks to.'
"And a surprise visitor to his economic team has been former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, dumped in 2002. Any of them could become part of Obama's economic team should he win in November, with a lot of focus on Daley being Treasury secretary."
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washington times.com.
LOAD-DATE: September 26, 2008
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September 26, 2008 Friday
Politics at the edge of an abyss
BYLINE: By Wesley Pruden, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; PRUDEN ON POLITICS; A04
Now is the time for every good man to come to the aid of the country. The economy's teetering on the edge of an abyss of unknown depth, Democrats and Republicans are wrestling with the devils of banking and the demons of high finance (elbowing each other for partisan advantage), and nobody has a clue about what, exactly, to do about the abyss. At least not a clue worth $700 billion.
John McCain suspends his campaign to hie to Washington to join the wrestling match, vowing to stay until there's an agreement if not necessarily a solution, and invites his presidential rival to join him. This is the gesture the naive among us would have expected from Barack Obama, if only he had thought of it first.
The anointed One, who has bent our sore ears for two years about how important it is to put partisanship aside and "reach across the aisle" to get things done on his terms, is eager only to vote "present," that wonderful rabbit hole of delay, evasion and avoidance that congressmen reserve for themselves. He's not experienced in many things but he's got a lot of experience in voting "present" when it's decision time. He thinks that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, this time to the land of cotton where old times there are trying to be forgotten, to talk about foreign affairs. If he can't be coaxed to do the right thing John McCain should send Sarah Palin to Mississippi. They're evenly matched. The governor lives next door to Vladimir Putin and the senator once bravely ordered piroshki and borscht at the old Russian Tea Room.
John McCain, so sniffs the mainstream media, the bloggers and the Obama handlers, is trying to run from a fight because his poll numbers are tanking (though Gallup's daily tracking poll now finds the race dead-even again) and he's desperate for a gimmick. Rep. Barney Frank, who as the congressional errand boy for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was an enabler of this mess, sneers that the McCain ploy is "the longest Hail Mary in the history of hails and Marys." But who's desperate? The Obama camp dispatched Rep. Alcee Hastings, who was impeached and thrown off the federal bench for taking a $150,000 bribe to go easy on a couple of racketeers, to inject a little race baiting into their faltering campaign in Florida. "If Sarah Palin isn't enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama," the black congressman told a group of retired Jews, "then you damn well better pay attention. Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't [sic] care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks." It was the most overt use of hate speech yet.
Bill Clinton, continuing to give Barack Obama the help the nominee deserves, gets John McCain's point. "We know he didn't do it because he's afraid, because Senator McCain wanted more debates," he told ABC News. "You can put [the debate] off for a few days [but] the problem is that it's hard to reschedule these things. I presume he did it in good faith since I know he wanted - I remember he asked for more debates to go around the country - and so I don't think we ought to overly parse that." He even had a few kind words for George W. "I thought his [Wednesday night speech] was the clearest statement of why we're in the fix we're in."
If the debate goes on Friday night in Oxford he thinks the two candidates should extend the debate beyond foreign affairs because foreign affairs are issues of national security, where John McCain excels and where Barack Obama hardly knows what a foreign affair is. Bubba's praise for Sen. McCain, however faint, follows Joe Biden's rebuke of the Obama television commercials mocking the senator's physical disabilities acquired at the Hanoi Hilton. (The McCain headquarters might send Bubba a couple of McCain-Palin bumper stickers, with one for Hillary, who may have the biggest stake of all in this campaign.)
The anointed One finally got to Washington Thursday, fearful of getting within range of the cameras lest he appear to have walked into a trap of unwanted perceptions, and accepted George W.'s invitation to sit down with him and John McCain at the White House. Dealing with the unexpected is uncharted territory for Mr. Obama, with no maps, no precedents, no teleprompter and no occasion to make a speech.
* Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Times.
LOAD-DATE: September 26, 2008
GRAPHIC: Bill Clinton [NO CREDIT]
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 25, 2008 Thursday
Final Edition
Freddie, Fannie funds went to McCain aide;
Now-failed housing giants once donated monthly to the current campaign chief, lobbying firm
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-8
WASHINGTON - Pay a lobbying firm $15,000 a month for several years to do no lobbying. Pay a former campaign aide to John McCain $30,000 a month for five years after the senator's failed bid in 2000 for the presidency.
At any other time, it would be business as usual in Washington.
Not today. The money came from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two failed housing giants that are a huge part of the financial crisis imperiling the economy.
And the recipient of most of the funds is Rick Davis, the current campaign manager for McCain, the Republican presidential nominee.
"The payments are for 'access insurance' with the Republican Party and with someone very close to McCain," James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, said yesterday.
McCain has tied Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama to Fannie and Freddie's troubles and has called on Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines - both Obama supporters and former Fannie Mae executives - to return large golden-parachute payments they received from the corporations after leaving.
McCain's campaign released a new television ad that says Raines is among those advising Obama on housing policy.
Obama's campaign released a statement from Raines, who says he is not an Obama adviser.
Obama criticizes McCain: Obama said yesterday in Florida that McCain may criticize Wall Street executives now but failed to speak out against their huge salaries a year ago and still backs policies that favor the wealthy over working families.
"He's suddenly a hard-charging populist, and that's all well and good," Obama told a crowd of about 11,000 people.
"But I sure wish he was talking the same way over a year ago, when I introduced a bill that would've helped stop the multimillion-dollar bonus packages that CEOs grab on their way out the door."
Obama's bill was not approved.
The Illinois senator also said he "blew the whistle" on big severance packages for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives after the government took control of the mortgage giants this month.
Palin's warning: Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said yesterday that the United States could be headed for another Great Depression if Congress doesn't act on the financial crisis.
Palin made the comment in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric while visiting New York City to meet foreign leaders for the first time in her political career. The leaders are in the city for the United Nations General Assembly.
Asked whether there's a risk of another Great Depression if Congress doesn't approve a proposed $700 billion bailout package, Palin said, "Unfortunately, that is the road that America may find itself on."
Palin said the answer to the financial crisis doesn't necessarily have to be the bailout plan that the Bush administration has proposed, but that it should be some form of bipartisan action to reform Wall Street.
Biden in Cincinnati: Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden Jr. yesterday questioned McCain's judgment to be commander in chief. He argued that the Republican would keep digging the United States into a hole of isolation and insecurity.
"Nothing is more important than judgment," Biden said. "But time and again, on the most critical national-security issues of our time, John McCain's judgment was wrong."
Biden listed several examples of what he described as McCain's wrong judgment, such as his contention that the U.S. would be greeted as liberators in Iraq and that the Persian Gulf nation is the central front in the war on terrorism.
Biden argued that the next president should focus the full U.S. might on al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
LOAD-DATE: September 27, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
September 25, 2008 Thursday
Metro Edition
PREPARE FOR AN ONSLAUGHT OF ADS
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B8
The good news about Virginia's unusual status as a battleground state is that the commonwealth will get plenty of notice from the candidates.
The bad news is that Virginia is getting another kind of attention: Both campaigns and independent special interest groups are flooding Virginia's airways with 30-second ads, most consisting of simplifications, distortions or outright lies about the opposing side.
Virginia voters should brace themselves for the onslaught to continue over the next month and a half -- and they should make sure not to accept any ad by any candidate at face value.
All ads are designed to manipulate, but political ads are generally more pernicious than those selling soap or mouthwash.
The most innocuous statement by an opponent will be plastered, completely out of context, across a screen while a sinister-sounding voice-over artist makes him sound like a cross between Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden.
A vote for a huge budget bill will be painted as a vote for a minor provision contained within.
Voters have a responsibility to try to wash away the mud and attempt to dig up the actual facts. There are several good places to do that.
FactCheck.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit operation run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
Staff members there examine political ads, candidate speeches, chain e-mails and other potential sources of disinformation. They compare the claims to the record, and call out the exaggerations, lies and distortions.
They've hit Sen. Barack Obama for exaggerating Sen. John McCain's plans for Social Security. They've hit McCain for repeatedly misstating Obama's tax plans. They exposed Sen. Joe Biden's use of partial quotes to distort what McCain has said about the financial crisis.
They examine the claims of third parties, too, including the NRA and authors like Jerome Corsi, whose best-selling "Obama Nation" they call "a mishmash of unsupported conjecture, half-truths, logical fallacies and outright falsehoods."
Politifact.com, from Congressional Quarterly and The St. Petersburg Times, offers a handy "Truth-O-Meter" that rates claims from "Pants-On-Fire" to "True." The Web site also recently started a "Flip!-- 2011(unknown) -->O!-- 2011(unknown) -->Meter" to judge candidate's flip-flops.
Many newspapers, including The Washington Post and USA Today, also do fact-check articles on advertisements.
So if you find an ad compelling and think it may help you make up your mind, do yourself -- and the nation -- a favor. Before you push the button on the voting machine, make sure you've checked the facts first.
Don't trust political ads. Doubt every claim they make until you can verify it yourself.blogs.roanoke.com/roundtable/
Join us for a live blog of the first presidential debate, scheduled for Friday at 9 p.m. (Sen. John McCain has asked for the debate to be delayed so he and Sen. Barack Obama can help forge a compromise to address the financial crisis.)
LOAD-DATE: September 26, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 25, 2008 Thursday
EDITORIAL: Prepare for an onslaught of ads
BYLINE: The Roanoke Times, Va.
Sep. 25--The good news about Virginia's unusual status as a battleground state is that the commonwealth will get plenty of notice from the candidates.
The bad news is that Virginia is getting another kind of attention: Both campaigns and independent special interest groups are flooding Virginia's airways with 30-second ads, most consisting of simplifications, distortions or outright lies about the opposing side.
Virginia voters should brace themselves for the onslaught to continue over the next month and a half -- and they should make sure not to accept any ad by any candidate at face value.
All ads are designed to manipulate, but political ads are generally more pernicious than those selling soap or mouthwash.
The most innocuous statement by an opponent will be plastered, completely out of context, across a screen while a sinister-sounding voice-over artist makes him sound like a cross between Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden.
A vote for a huge budget bill will be painted as a vote for a minor provision contained within.
Voters have a responsibility to try to wash away the mud and attempt to dig up the actual facts. There are several good places to do that.
FactCheck.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit operation run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
Staff members there examine political ads, candidate speeches, chain e-mails and other potential sources of disinformation. They compare the claims to the record, and call out the exaggerations, lies and distortions.
They've hit Sen. Barack Obama for exaggerating Sen. John McCain's plans for Social Security. They've hit McCain for repeatedly misstating Obama's tax plans. They exposed Sen. Joe Biden's use of partial quotes to distort what McCain has said about the financial crisis.
They examine the claims of third parties, too, including the NRA and authors like Jerome Corsi, whose best-selling "Obama Nation" they call "a mishmash of unsupported conjecture, half-truths, logical fallacies and outright falsehoods."
Politifact.com, from Congressional Quarterly and The St. Petersburg Times, offers a handy "Truth-O-Meter" that rates claims from "Pants-On-Fire" to "True." The Web site also recently started a "FlipOMeter" to judge candidate's flip-flops.
Many newspapers, including The Washington Post and USA Today, also do fact-check articles on advertisements.
So if you find an ad compelling and think it may help you make up your mind, do yourself -- and the nation -- a favor. Before you push the button on the voting machine, make sure you've checked the facts first.
Don't trust political ads. Doubt every claim they make until you can verify it yourself.
blogs.roanoke.com/roundtable/ Join us for a live blog of the first presidential debate, scheduled for Friday at 9 p.m. (Sen. John McCain has asked for the debate to be delayed so he and Sen. Barack Obama can help forge a compromise to address the financial crisis.)
To see more of The Roanoke Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.roanoke.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Roanoke Times, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: September 26, 2008
ACC-NO: 20080925-RO-EDIT-CAMPAIGN-ADS-20080925
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
The Washington Post
September 25, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
To Craft a Rescue, Go Back to Andrews;
A Past Budget Summit's Bipartisan Model
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A19
It's time to go back to Andrews Air Force Base -- with a twist.
In 1987 and 1990, administration officials and congressional leaders of both parties huddled behind closed doors at the suburban Maryland facility to hammer out plans to deal with the budget deficit.
The current crisis calls for an updated, hyper-speed version of those negotiations. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke should drive out to Andrews with their top people. The senior House and Senate leaders of both parties should go, along with a few key aides.
President Bush has summoned Barack Obama and John McCain to the White House tomorrow. Okay, but yesterday's game of Debate Chicken suggests that inserting the candidates so directly into the negotiating process will help neither the economy nor the campaign -- nor, I suspect, the candidates themselves.
However -- and this is my Andrews twist -- each candidate should send his top economic advisers to my proposed summit. Everyone should pack right now and come back Monday morning at the latest with a deal.
I'm not generally a fan of governing by summit. Like outside commissions, summits tend to produce up-or-down results when they produce any results at all. I prefer a more democratic process. Summits also can devolve into drawn-out marathons. The 1990 summit, in which the first President Bush revoked his "no new taxes" pledge, dragged on for 10 days.
Structuring the bailout arrangement, however, is not the kind of legislation that ought to be open to the potential mischief of amendment on the floor. There is reasonably broad agreement on principles -- that a package is needed and needed quickly -- but complex details must be worked out.
Nothing concentrates the mind like the prospect of a market meltdown. A good weekend's work at Andrews ought to be enough to hammer out the complicated parts, such as what the oversight structure should be or how to deal with executive compensation.
So what should the candidates' roles be? One of the two, after all, will inherit this mess -- and the less messy it is, the better off he will be. Each is, in some sense, the leader of his party. Each is a sitting senator.
They need to be involved, yes, but not so deeply engaged that political maneuvering elbows aside serious policymaking, as yesterday's posturing threatened to do. I suspended my campaign first! No, I care more about the economy and I called you first! I'm above politics! No, I'm above politics! Does anyone think this is productive? Soon enough McCain and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went at it. By early evening it seemed that everyone was sniping at everyone.
McCain was the worst abuser yesterday. It was bad enough that he announced that the situation was far too serious to do anything as frivolous as debate -- not! -- especially because McCain acted unilaterally, just after finishing a phone discussion with Obama about whether they should issue a joint statement. Then McCain solemnly declared he was also suspending advertising and fundraising -- showboating of the first order. The economy could use that ad revenue, senator.
Then Obama weighed in, saying at a news conference saying he was a walk-and-chew-gum-at-the-same-time guy who could debate and deal with the economic problem, too. Message to candidates: This sort of jockeying for political advantage isn't making anyone look good.
And seriously, no one needs Obama and McCain in the room to work out the details. It's important to the country to hear them debate. But it is also crucial that each campaign participate in crafting, and therefore buy into, whatever deal emerges. The campaigns are neutralized if the candidates have representatives on the scene. And both Obama and McCain could play a useful cat-herding role by providing backing that could calm recalcitrant lawmakers.
In short, the candidates should go on with the show, hold the debate, keep campaigning. Everyone else: Head out to Andrews. A veteran of the 1990 summit tells me that the food there is pretty good.
marcusr@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: September 25, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Greg Gibson -- Associated Press; Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole, right, gives President George H.W. Bush a "budget buster" baseball bat at a summit held at Andrews Air Force Base in 1990. In the foreground is Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
September 25, 2008 Thursday
Financial lobbyists wooed negotiators;
Raised funds for campaigns
BYLINE: By Jim McElhatton, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Key House members weighing a $700 billion Wall Street bailout have filled their campaign coffers this year at more than 250 fundraising parties hosted by financial-sector lobbyists, including a beer tasting and a Washington Redskins game, according to a watchdog group.
Nancy Watzman, director of the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation's Party Time project, which tracks campaign fundraisers, said the same House members who were "wined, dined and sushied" by the financial sector are deciding the fate of the largest proposed financial industry bailout in U.S. history.
The House Financial Services Committee held hearings Wednesday on the Treasury Department's proposed $700 billion bailout to buy distressed bonds that are causing chaos in the U.S. credit markets.
According to the foundation, a "beer tasting" fundraiser for one committee member, Rep. Tom Feeney, Florida Republican, was held July 30 and hosted by several lobbyists, including one for Citigroup Management Corp.
But a Feeney spokeswoman, Pepper Pennington, said such events don't sway the congressman.
"The contributions have no influence on Tom Feeney's principles or his legislative activity," she said, adding that a recent Wall Street Journal article quoted Mr. Feeney as railing against the "failed regulation, reckless management and casino culture on Wall Street."
Another invitation obtained by the Sunlight Foundation touted a fundraiser for Democratic Rep. Gregory W. Meeks of New York at FedEx Field for the Washington Redskins' Sept. 14 win against the New Orleans Saints. A spokeswoman for Mr. Meeks did not respond to questions about the fundraiser by deadline Wednesday.
Yet another invitation included a July 29 "sushi reception" for Rep. Kenny Marchant, Texas Republican. But Mr. Marchant's chief of staff, Brian Thomas, said the event "didn't take place."
"In general, we do have events, just as the Democrats do," Mr. Thomas said. "Do people support you if you support their issues? Absolutely. But there are a lot of issues in the financial services community, and we're on both sides on the issues - nobody is buying anyone with sushi."
There's no law mandating that lawmakers or lobbyists disclose political fundraising solicitations, but invitations are regularly sent, Ms. Watzman said. She said the foundation collects hundreds of fundraising invitations, but she noted it's likely events such as the "sushi reception" are canceled.
But Ms. Watzman also said there's no way to know for sure because the fundraisers are usually closed to the public. Calling for greater transparency, she said she tried to attend the fundraisers at the recent Democratic and Republican political conventions, but was regularly turned away.
The foundation issued its findings on fundraisers one day after a separate report by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) raised questions about the influence of financial sector political contributions in a key financial deregulation bill.
According to the CRP, members of Congress who voted to deregulate banks by supporting the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act were far more likely to fill their campaign coffers with donations from financial sector than politicians who opposed easing restrictions.
The center's analysis included presidential campaign contributions, too. So Sens. John McCain, Barack Obama, John Kerry and Hillary Rodham Clinton - all of whom raised tens of millions of dollars for their White House bids - topped the list of recipients.
Mr. McCain was absent for the deregulation vote, while Mr. Kerry supported it along with Mr. Obama's running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. Neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Obama were in the Senate in 1999.
One prominent deregulation supporter, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, chairman of the Senate banking committee, received $13.2 million in contributions from the financial sector from 1989 to this year, according to the center.
LOAD-DATE: September 25, 2008
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September 25, 2008 Thursday
Bush pitches bailout, calls summit;
McCain suspends campaign for crisis
BYLINE: By David R. Sands and Sean Lengell, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
President Bush pulled out all the stops to sell his economic bailout to a skeptical public and Congress Wednesday, telling a national TV audience that millions of jobs could be lost if the plan is not approved and summoning the two presidential contenders to a White House summit with congressional leaders Thursday.
"These are not normal times," Mr. Bush said in a sober, 12-minute address to the nation, his first such address in more than a year.
"The markets are not functioning properly. There is a widespread loss of confidence," he said, adding that if a version of his $700 billion bailout package is not approved quickly, "America could slip into a financial panic."
Sen. John McCain already had shaken up the election earlier in the day by suspending his presidential campaign to deal with the market crisis and threatening to cancel Friday's first debate. Both he and Sen. Barack Obama indicated they would accept the White House invite for the 3:55 p.m. meeting.
The two candidates also issued a joint statement urging support for a deal to end the crisis.
"Now is a time to come together, Democrats and Republicans, in a spirit of cooperation for the sake of the American people," the statement said. "The plan that has been submitted to Congress by the Bush administration is flawed, but the effort to protect the American economy must not fail."
The intense political maneuvering came as congressional leaders worked into the night to agree on a bill implementing the bailout plan before the scheduled adjournment this weekend.
A Democratic Party source, speaking on the condition that he not be identified, told The Washington Times that the sides were already close to agreement on a bill and said he hoped they would be able to complete a final draft of the bill at the White House session.
Separately on Wednesday night, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat and Senate banking committee chairman, said at a Capitol Hill news conference that there was a "good possibility" a deal could be reached "within the next day or so."
Mr. Bush, returning to Washington after cutting short a visit to the U.N. General Assembly in New York, said in his White House address that his "natural instinct" was to oppose the idea of governments bailing out private firms in a free-market economy.
But he said the financial danger was so severe that failing to intervene could have led to a far greater economic crisis, and he insisted the plan was not designed to bail out of Wall Street bankers or individual firms, but was "aimed at preserving the overall economy."
"With the situation becoming more precarious by the day, I faced a choice: to step in with dramatic government action or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions by some to undermine the financial security of all," Mr. Bush said.
Without the package, "more banks could fail, including some in your neighborhood; the stock market could drop even more, affecting your retirement; the value of your home could plummet, foreclosures would rise dramatically," he said. "Businesses will close their doors, millions could lose their jobs."
The president also set out a number of principles for the bill, including several modifications that already have been negotiated since the package was proposed last week. He said the bill should "ensure that taxpayers are protected" and make sure that "failed executives do not receive a windfall," reflecting a key concession that members of Congress had wrung from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., the plan's chief architect.
Earlier, support had been growing for a smaller initial down payment on the plan, perhaps of $150 billion, that the new Congress could reconsider in early 2009. Mr. Paulson, who has pushed for maximum "flexibility" for the Treasury, called that idea a "grave mistake."
Mr. Bush also called for bipartisan oversight of the operation of the bailout, a measure agreed to earlier in the week. And he predicted that most if not all of the $700 billion would be recovered as the economy got back on its feet.
That series of concessions was trumpeted in statements after the speech by Mr. Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats.
The stock market reacted moderately to the Washington drama early in the day, after registering the biggest two-day drop in six years to start the week. The Dow Jones index of industrial stocks was down 29 points to 10,825.17. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 2.35 points, or 0.20 percent, to close at 1,185.87, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 2.35 points, or 0.11 percent, to close at 2,155.68.
In suspending his campaign, Mr. McCain also called for a postponement of Friday's first debate with Mr. Obama because of the severity of the nation's economic troubles. The debate was to focus on foreign policy and national security
"It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the administration's proposal," Mr. McCain said. "I do not believe the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time."
Both Mr. Obama and the U.S. Commission on Presidential Debates, which is organizing the debate in Oxford, Miss., immediately rejected Mr. McCain's call for a delay, though the McCain campaign responded that their refusal would not affect the Arizona senator's plans.
"It's going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once," Mr. Obama told reporters in Clearwater, Fla.
While Congress struggled with the Wall Street crisis, the House did manage to pass a $630 billion stopgap spending bill to keep the federal government operating into March. The bill includes money for the Pentagon and a $25 billion aid package for struggling U.S. automakers.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and Mr. Dodd are trying to fashion a single bill that would expedite passage in both chambers before this week's scheduled adjournment.
"We're focusing on trying to make sure the Senate and the House are in synch," said Mr. Frank, Massachusetts Democrat.
The three-page emergency Treasury proposal given to lawmakers over the weekend is now a 42-page draft bill that would give the Treasury secretary broad authority and a massive war chest to buy up troubled mortgages and mortgage-based securities - assets with plunging values that have threatened to paralyze the U.S. and global credit markets.
A beleaguered Mr. Paulson, enduring a second straight day of lengthy and skeptical questioning from lawmakers, stood firm against one idea included in the Democratic draft and endorsed by a number of private economists. They want the government to demand an ownership stake in the financial companies that accept federal aid, giving taxpayers a chance to profit if the rescue plan boosts share prices.
But Mr. Paulson, a former Goldman Sachs chief executive, told the House Financial Services Committee that the equity idea would undercut a key plank of the plan - to get as many banks and commercial lenders as possible to participate.
A day after a five-hour grilling before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Mr. Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke were again in the hot seat, testifying before the House panel while Mr. Bernanke also did a solo turn before the Joint Economic Committee.
The two heard repeated complaints that the Wall Street bailout was proving massively unpopular with voters back home.
"You have a credibility problem with the American people," said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, New York Democrat.
But Mr. Bernanke argued that the rescue operation was designed to get banks lending again and restore confidence in the markets generally. Small businesses, farmers, retirees and young families would all suffer the consequences if the government failed to act, he predicted. Asked whether pension plans and individual 401(k) savings plans would be hurt if Congress failed to act, the Fed chairman replied: "Very likely."
Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson met with more than 20 Democratic senators for about two hours early Wednesday evening. Democratic leaders said later that the meeting was constructive but that no decisions had been made.
"I realize speed is important, but I think my colleagues are also far more concerned about getting this right, and that's our intention and our goal," Mr. Dodd said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, added that congressional staffs "will work all night" on the deal.
Key lawmakers said that although the plan is not popular, most members appear resigned to voting for the final bill. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said, "With the exception of a few outliers on either side, there is clear recognition among members of both parties that we must act and act soon."
Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke repeatedly stressed that the ultimate cost of the bailout to taxpayers was likely to be far less than $700 billion, as the government sells off the "toxic assets" that right now can't be unloaded at any price.
"The risk to the taxpayer, while not trivial, is far less than the purchase amount," Mr. Bernanke said.
* Jon Ward contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 25, 2008
GRAPHIC: 'NOT NORMAL TIMES': President Bush told the nation Wednesday night that "financial panic" will result if Congress does not pass the bailout bill quickly. [Photo by Associated Press]
STEPPING BACK: Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain on Wednesday told reporters in New York that he is suspending his campaign to work on the financial crisis and has called for Friday's planned debate to be postponed. [Photo by Associated Press]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 25, 2008 Thursday
BYLINE: By James Morrison, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: WORLD; EMBASSY ROW; A16
ATLANTIC AGENDA
The president of the European Commission on Wednesday released a letter to the next president of the United States, saying the challenges facing the trans-Atlantic alliance will be the same whether he is Sen. John McCain or Sen. Barack Obama.
"The time has come to start thinking of an Atlantic Agenda for Globalization," Jose Manuel Barroso said in his seven-page letter that he read as part of a speech at Harvard University.
"From climate change to trade, from development to terrorism, these are challenges that require Europeans and Americans to agree on a new, multilateral agenda."
Before he discussed his proposals for greater cooperation between the United States and the European Union, Mr. Barroso congratulated the next president on his victory and noted that his election marked the first time a sitting senator was elected since John F. Kennedy in 1960.
In another historic first, Mr. Barroso added, the victor is the first president born outside the continental United States. Mr. McCain was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, and Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.
Referring to the financial crisis in the United States, Mr. Barroso warned that economic panic could spread globally and even encourage terrorists to try to take advantage of the market meltdown.
"Turmoil in closely linked financial markets can undermine our economic progress," he said. "Global pandemics can spread faster. Terrorists can more easily coordinate and carry out attack on our homelands. A lack of secure and sustainable energy could push us into a worldwide recession, and climate change, beyond its environmental consequences, could have serious geopolitical and social repercussions."
He said the next U.S. president must build on the existing trans-Atlantic foundations, like NATO, the Trans-Atlantic Economic Council and other institutions.
The European Union has 27 member nations with a combined population of about 500 million. Jointly, the EU and the United States account for 40 percent of world trade and generate $4 trillion in annual commercial sales, he added.
Mr. Barroso, who heads the executive arm of the EU, referred to the need for "global governance" to help "solve the new types of challenges that the whole world now faces."
"We should seize the opportunities and start writing our new Atlantic Agenda now," he said.
WASHINGTON'S SLAVES
The deputy chief of mission at the British Embassy conceded Wednesday that his country has "much to be ashamed of" for its role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, as he previewed a sculpture to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Slave Memorial at Mount Vernon, George Washington's plantation on the Potomac River.
Britain was "involved in both the development of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and in bringing it to an end," said Dominick Chilcott at a reception that also featured Sheila Coates, president of the Black Women United for Action, and Lucia Henderson, Washington vice regent of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association.
"We have, therefore, much to be ashamed of, as well as to celebrate, in our history."
Through the long campaign of William Wilberforce, a member of the British Parliament, Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807 and abolished slavery in the British Empire in 1833. Before those actions, British slave merchants transported an estimated 4 million Africans into slavery in North America and in the British Caribbean territories, Mr. Chilcott said.
The sculpture will be dedicated Saturday at 11 a.m. at Mount Vernon, where an estimated 300 of Washington's slaves were buried.
* Call Embassy Row at 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail jmorrison @washingtontimes.com.
LOAD-DATE: September 25, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
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September 25, 2008 Thursday
McCain steps up in maverick style
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan and Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Democrats had dared Sen. John McCain to show leadership on the Wall Street crisis and he stepped up. He put his campaign on hold Wednesday and challenged Sen. Barack Obama to postpone Friday's debate, which Democrats had hoped to turn into a forum on failed Republican economic policies.
Less than a month after he canceled the first night of the Republican National Convention, Mr. McCain again flashed his signature maverick style, declaring President Bush's proposed $700 billion bailout dead and, as he's done so often in the past, said he could help broker a bipartisan deal to cut through the political clutter.
Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama refused to cancel the debate, but Wednesday night accepted an invitation from President Bush to a bipartisan summit on the economic bailout package that also will include Mr. McCain and other top members of Congress and the administration.
In rejecting Mr. McCain's debate postponement, Mr. Obama said the Republican showed his own limits rather than real leadership.
"It is going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once," Mr. Obama told reporters in Florida. "If it turns out that we need to be in Washington, we've both got big planes - we've painted our slogans on the side of them - they can get us from Washington, D.C., to Mississippi fairly quickly."
Mr. Obama's campaign said he called Mr. McCain at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, proposing a joint statement on the economic situation. The two men again spoke privately at 2:30 p.m., but minutes later, Mr. McCain then went much further and told reporters that he wanted to postpone all politicking.
The McCain campaign said last night that Mr. Obama's refusal would not affect their plans. The Arizona senator announced that he was canceling his political commercials and would return to Washington after a final nonpartisan speech Thursday to the Clinton Global Initiative. He also said he was suspending fundraising, though the link on his Web site for contributions to his campaign compliance fund still worked Wednesday night.
Mr. McCain said top leaders from both parties should meet and hammer out details of a bill that that they would then present to their colleagues as the best solution possible - exactly the way he has crafted deals on other major issues, such as judicial nominees and immigration.
"I am confident that before the markets open on Monday, we can achieve consensus on legislation that will stabilize our financial markets, protect taxpayers and homeowners, and earn the confidence of the American people," he said. "All we must do to achieve this is temporarily set politics aside, and I am committed to doing so."
It's the second time in less than a month that he's tried to show leadership by canceling a political event. Just weeks ago, he pulled commercials and scrapped most of the first day of the Republican National Convention, saying he didn't want to distract from the relief efforts surrounding Hurricane Ike.
Earlier this month, when the candidates had a one-day campaign break to commemorate the 2001 terrorist attacks, Mr. McCain blamed the nasty tone of the campaign on Mr. Obama, saying it would have been more agreeable had the Democrat agreed to his town hall invitations.
The McCain team said returning to Washington and suspending his campaign was an easy decision.
"[We] got in a position where, you know, the Democrats were warily circling McCain: 'not going to commit to a deal unless McCain does.' It was just a time for leadership. So he just stepped up," said a McCain campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
But the move also comes as Mr. McCain is slipping in the polls and struggling to find his voice on the economy, and Democrats said it was little more than a stunt.
On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had dared Mr. McCain to take control of the debate, telling reporters: "We need, now, the Republicans to start producing some votes for us. We need the Republican nominee for president to let us know where he stands and what we should do."
By Wednesday, though, Mr. Reid had apparently changed his mind. He said the debate should go on and said: "It would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation's economy."
At an evening news conference, the Nevada Democrat was even more pointed, saying, "It appears to me that John McCain is trying to divert attention to his failing campaign. Coming back here is not going to add to the process."
Congressional Democrats are tweaking Mr. Bush's bailout proposal, arguing that the price tag is too big and that it turns over too much control to the Treasury Department secretary, who would be allowed to buy bad assets from troubled companies.
Mr. McCain has refused to take a position on Mr. Bush's proposal, instead laying out principles for a final bill.
Mr. Obama already had limited his campaign stumping this week in favor of debate preparation, while Mr. McCain had a more full schedule of events. But Mr. McCain's staff said that he had been preparing and that this was not an effort to duck the debate.
The nonpartisan group that hosts the debates said Friday's foreign policy-focused meeting between the two major party nominees would continue as planned at the University of Mississippi at Oxford, and university officials said they were proceeding as planned.
Mr. Obama said that if congressional leaders need him for a close vote or if they need him to "be helpful, then I can be prepared to be anywhere at any time."
He said he was wary of "infusing" presidential politics on Capitol Hill. He added that he'd spoken with Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican whom he considers a friend, and said Mr. Coburn suggested a joint statement would be useful.
But Republicans said the presidential candidates should not politicize the debate and said Mr. McCain deserved credit for putting his campaign on the line again.
"This business is all about risk, unless you do nothing. John has always been a risk-taker, but not a foolish one. This is a time for leadership in our country," said Sen. Johnny Isakson, Georgia Republican.
By rejecting Mr. McCain's offer, Mr. Obama may have saved the Republican from being tied to a Democrat-written package that could emerge from congressional negotiations.
Both men have missed substantial numbers of Senate votes this year as they have campaigned across the country. Mr. Obama last voted in July; Mr. McCain's last vote was in April.
Mr. Obama said there are areas where the presidential rivals agree, such as oversight and making sure the taxpayers get as much of their money back as possible.
"We agreed that this was a critical time for everyone," he said.
Mr. Obama said that Mr. McCain suggested a joint meeting in Washington, but Mr. Obama said the joint statement should come first as a "clear signal." He said he had the impression that Mr. McCain was "mulling over" delaying the debate, but that by the time he returned to his hotel after a rally, "he had gone on television" to call for the delay.
"Apparently [he was] more decisive about it in his own mind," Mr. Obama said.
* S.A. Miller in Washington and Joseph Curl in New York contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 25, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 24, 2008 Wednesday
Met 2 Edition
The Words Left Unspoken in the Bailout Debate
BYLINE: Steven Pearlstein
SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. D01
In all that's been said in recent days about the latest proposals to rescue the financial system, two words have been conspicuously absent.
They are the words that Americans need to hear before they commit $2,300 for every man, woman and child to rescue the financial system.
They are the words we need to hear before taxpayers are put in the position of rescuing arrogant and overpaid financiers from the full consequences of their bad bets and misguided decisions.
Most of all, they are the words that elected senators and representatives need to hear before they entrust the secretary of the Treasury with extraordinary power and discretion to spend public money and actively manage the markets and the economy:
"We're sorry."
As in, "We're sorry that those of us who were supposed to be stewards of the world's deepest and most trusted capital markets have violated that trust by putting our own interests ahead of those of our customers and the country."
We've now entered the political phase of this financial crisis, in which the outcome will be determined not by the fear and greed of investors but by the hopes and anxieties of the voters. Their decision won't be based on some collective assessment of the efficacy of reverse auctions in the price discovery process, or whether it is better to prop up the market for mortgage-backed securities or inject fresh capital into the banks that are holding them.
Their decision -- our decision -- will come down to a much simpler question: We've got one last chance to fix this thing. Are we willing to put our fate once again in the hands of financiers who have already abused our trust?
And that's where the two magic words come in. In Japan, great ritual accompanies such apologies, which are viewed as the first step in fixing a problem and restoring frayed relations. Here, by contrast, corporate apologies are viewed as unnecessary concessions to business and political adversaries and dangerous ammunition in the hands of prosecutors and plaintiffs lawyers.
You'll have to take it from me that it's probably not a good idea to put in legislation a requirement that any financial institution that wants to participate in the rescue program has to cap executive compensation at $400,000 a year -- the same as the president -- and eliminate all severance pay from executive contracts.
On the other hand, it would certainly capture people's attention if the heads of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley were to stand before the cameras in the Capitol rotunda, apologize for letting down their investors and their employees and voluntarily offer to suspend their extravagant compensation schemes until the crisis has passed and new regulations are in place.
Because all financial institutions will benefit from a federal program to jump-start the markets in asset-backed securities, whether they participate in the program or not, it is hard to figure out which companies should be required to give taxpayers some of the "up side" if and when the markets recover.
But it would surely make it easier for members of Congress to defend this program to their angry constituents if the industry could express its appreciation for the government's extraordinary effort by voluntarily offering the Treasury an option to buy 5 percent of each company's stock at today's depressed prices at some time in the future.
Some Democrats are demanding that the bailout plan have a provision allowing any homeowner facing foreclosure to file for bankruptcy and get a bankruptcy judge to reduce the mortgage to whatever she can afford. Again, another bad idea. But what's to prevent the industry from agreeing to engage in a mediated workout process with any borrower facing foreclosure?
These are the kinds of things that responsible, honorable people do when they screw up and are forced to ask their neighbors for help. They don't point the finger at greedy short-sellers and misguided regulators for the disaster that occurred on their watch. They don't hire lobbyists to see how they can tweak the bailout to be even sweeter for them than it already is. And they certainly don't threaten to bring on financial Armageddon if people refuse to help them out.
What responsible, honorable people do is apologize for their mistakes, promise that it won't happen again and vow that they'll make it up to us once the crisis has passed. But in the past year, we've not heard any of that from the titans of Wall Street.
Political systems, communities, markets all share one common characteristic -- at their core, they all require a level of trust among the participants if they are going to work. In recent years, we have allowed that trust to erode to the point that our political system is paralyzed by partisan bickering and communities are fractured into enclaves of race and class. Now markets are collapsing because investors realize they have been misled by corporate executives, investment banks, ratings agencies and regulators.
As a country, there is an urgent need to rebuild that trust. In different ways, that is what both the McCain and Obama campaigns are all about. And it is the same challenge that now faces us in this financial crisis. At some level, we all know that we've driven the economy and the financial system into a ditch and that we're going to have to spend some money to get out of it. But until Wall Street can muster the decency, the humility and the good sense to acknowledge its colossal screw-up, it shouldn't be surprising that Americans are balking at writing the check.
Steven Pearlstein will host a Web discussion at 11 a.m. today at washingtonpost.com. He can be reached at pearlsteins@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: September 24, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 24, 2008 Wednesday
Regional Edition
Talked-About Ads Were Seldom Aired;
Campaigns Capitalize on Controversy
BYLINE: Howard Kurtz; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
Sen. John McCain received considerable publicity for a television ad accusing his Democratic opponent of having "lashed out at Sarah Palin, dismissed her as good-looking . . . then desperately called Sarah Palin a liar. How disrespectful."
In the two weeks after the Republican convention, the commercial aired seven times.
Sen. Barack Obama drew substantial media attention for a spot declaring: "John McCain is hardly a maverick. . . . Sarah Palin's no maverick, either. She was for the 'Bridge to Nowhere' before she was against it. Politicians lying about their records." During the same period, that commercial aired eight times.
In the two-week period that ended Sunday, the McCain campaign released 25 ads, 12 of which aired fewer than 25 times. The Obama campaign released 28 ads, 11 of which aired fewer than 25 times.
"They've smartly figured out that there's news of the day, and by feeding the content beast that is cable news and the blogosphere, they're getting out their unfiltered take on the news of the day," said Evan Tracey of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, which compiled the figures. Given the media's hunger for controversy, he said, "the campaigns are the enabling girlfriend."
By contrast, McCain's most frequently aired spot during this period, casting him and Alaska Gov. Palin as the "original mavericks," aired 15,938 times. Obama's top spot, detailing the lobbying records of senior McCain aides, ran 14,809 times.
It is an open secret by now that both campaigns are flooding the market with what amount to video press releases. The phantom spots receive enormous amounts of free airtime, particularly on cable news channels, and are the subject of news stories and "ad watch" features in newspapers. Journalists have no way of knowing in advance which spots will involve a substantial buy and which will not.
Spokesmen for McCain and Obama would not comment on the practice.
McCain's best investment may have been the spot accusing Obama of supporting sex education for kindergarteners in Illinois, although the legislation called for "age-appropriate" teaching. It aired 43 times during the two-week period. A hotly debated commercial charging Obama with taking advice from former Fannie Mae chief executive Franklin D. Raines aired three times. And an ad calling Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment an insult to Palin never ran on television.
Obama made headlines with a spot calling McCain out of touch because he didn't know how to use a computer and doesn't send e-mail. It aired six times. A commercial citing media criticism in accusing McCain of running the "sleaziest ads ever, truly vile" aired 19 times. And a spot charging McCain with dismissing the wage gap between men and women ran twice.
The pattern is that campaigns are putting the least money behind their most slashing spots, the kind that tend to drive news coverage. "The stuff they're putting weight behind is not all that tough," Tracey said.
LOAD-DATE: September 24, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 24, 2008 Wednesday
Suburban Edition
McCain Aide's Firm Was Paid Recently;
Davis Said Work for Freddie Had Ceased
BYLINE: Michael D. Shear; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A06
The lobbying firm founded and co-owned by Rick Davis, the campaign manager for Sen. John McCain's White House bid, received payments from Freddie Mac in recent months, despite assertions by Davis earlier this week that the firm's work for the mortgage giant had ended three years ago.
An industry source told The Washington Post that Davis's firm, Davis Manafort, continued to receive monthly payments in the $15,000 range from Freddie Mac until very recently, confirming an ongoing financial relationship reported last night in several other publications.
The source said Davis Manafort was paid for being on retainer to Freddie Mac but did little actual work after early 2007.
Two unidentified sources told the newspaper Roll Call yesterday that Davis Manafort is still receiving payments from the mortgage giant, one of the financial institutions at the center of the nation's housing crisis. The New York Times reported last night that the payments stopped last month.
Both reports appear to contradict Davis's comments to reporters on a conference call this week.
Before working on the McCain campaign, Davis had served as the president of the Homeownership Alliance, a group created to lobby for mortgage companies and other groups on behalf of homeownership.
"I have had a severed leave of absence from my firm for 18 months," he said Monday. "I have taken no compensation from my company, and our work for the Homeownership Alliance had ended about a year, year-and-a-half before that even started. So it's been over three years since there's been any activity in this area and since I've had any contact with those folks."
Davis has suspended his salary from Davis Manafort, but, as an equity partner in the firm, he continues to have an financial stake in its success.
A Times article this week said Davis received $2 million in compensation for his work at the Homeownership Alliance. But Davis said Monday that he had done no lobbying and dismissed the article.
"I was the public face of an organization that promoted homeownership for many years," Davis told reporters. "Sure, I have relationships there." But at the same time he was serving as a consultant to the alliance, Davis said, McCain was pursuing more regulation on the mortgage giants, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
Campaign officials declined to make Davis available Tuesday night to answer questions about the payments.
The McCain campaign has no knowledge of the business arrangements that Davis Manafort has with clients, spokesman Tucker Bounds said. "What this campaign has made clear is that we are not commenting on an outside business that is unrelated to the daily activities of this campaign," Bounds said.
And he insisted that McCain did no favors for the housing industry because of any work that Davis did on behalf of the corporations or the alliance.
"It's pretty clear that the same people who ran Fannie and Freddie into the ground and stuck the taxpayers with the bill are now attacking John McCain, one of the few people in Washington who has ever stood up to them," Bounds said. "That shouldn't surprise anyone -- it's business as usual in Washington."
The news about Davis comes as both campaigns are trying to link their rivals to the failed mortgage institutions.
McCain has begun to run television commercials that link Sen. Barack Obama to two former chief executives of the once-venerated housing lenders. One ad ties Obama to Franklin Raines, who now denies comments he made to The Post this summer about sharing housing and economic advice with the senator from Illinois.
The other McCain ad links Obama to Jim Johnson, who was briefly in charge of Obama's vice presidential selection process before resigning amid public concern about his ties to the housing crisis.
Obama has attempted to link the senator from Arizona to the mortgage giants. Democrats have sent out information suggesting that almost two dozen people affiliated with the McCain campaign have ties to the housing firms.
LOAD-DATE: September 24, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Charles Dharapak -- Associated Press; Sen. John McCain waves as he is joined by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, left, campaign manager Rick Davis, second from right, and son Jack McCain.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
September 24, 2008 Wednesday
Tough questions, please;
Debates should be instructive
BYLINE: By Paul Waldman, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
To put it mildly, this has not been the most substantive of presidential campaigns. We've endured endless discussions about flag pins and lipstick, Paris Hilton and former pastors, and a whole raft of controversies so meaningless they fly right out of our heads as soon as the next absurd attack ad is unveiled and played dozens of times on cable news. But on Friday, Americans will finally get an extended look at Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama talking about issues. That is, we will if the journalists moderating the debates will let us.
The debate moderators have some ground to make up. It's not just that the day-to-day coverage of the campaign has been focused on pointless trifles, but the primary debates appeared designed to test candidates' abilities to answer the most absurd questions journalists could devise.
In the primary campaign, there were 32 nationally televised debates, more than ever before. In an era in which the typical soundbite of a presidential candidate on the evening news is less than eight seconds long, so many debates might have offered voters an opportunity to learn more than they would ever need to know about where the candidates stood on issues and what they wanted to do as president. Instead, the media figures who moderated the debates - mostly television news personalities - seemed to work overtime making sure that substantive policy discussion would be overwhelmed by fluff and trivia. As Media Matters Action Network discovered when analyzing the 2,300 questions asked in these debates, substance often took a back seat to personal questions, "gotcha" questions and just plain ridiculous questions.
Candidates were asked to name their favorite Bible verse, forced to choose between the Red Sox and the Yankees, queried about what costume they'd wear on Halloween, and asked question after question about polls and political strategy. They were forced to defend statements made by their supporters, required to rehash campaign gaffes, and told to raise their hands in response to numerous questions, as though they were schoolchildren.
The problem wasn't just with the questions that were asked, but with those that weren't. Only 9 percent of the questions concerned the economy, which has become the most important issue in the general election. Only six questions out of the total of 2,300 touched on the growing crisis in the mortgage industry, which was already making headlines in 2007. Only two questions touched on the issue of declining wages. There were dozens of questions about oil prices, but only three about conservation and renewable energy. There was not a single question about the Bush administration's unprecedented use of signing statements, its dramatic claims of executive privilege, or its extraordinary secrecy. The debates featured only one question about wiretapping, and only two questions about the prison at Guantanamo.
If nothing else, the shabby treatment was bipartisan: The Democratic and Republican candidates faced equally bad questions. As the primary campaign went on, furthermore, the debates became less and less substantive; by the campaign's final period, non-substantive questions outnumbered substantive ones. And the candidates at the top of the polls, including Messrs. Obama and McCain, were more likely to be asked trivial questions than those at the back of the pack.
The blame, however, should not be spread equally. Two networks stood out for sticking to matters of policy: PBS and Univision. Every question asked in the PBS debates was substantive, as were 82 percent of the questions asked in the debates sponsored by Univision. At the other end of the spectrum, only 46 percent of the questions asked in the ABC debates were substantive, as were only 45 percent of the questions in the Fox News debates.
The upcoming presidential debates will be moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS, Tom Brokaw of NBC, and Bob Schieffer of CBS; PBS' Gwen Ifill will moderate the vice-presidential debate. While all four are respected journalists, so are many of those who moderated the primary debates that received, with good reason, such poor reviews. One hopes they will focus on some of the critical issues that got ignored during the primaries.
We've been told repeatedly that this is an historic election, and the challenges facing the country could hardly be more serious -from a faltering economy to tens of millions without health coverage to two wars still being waged overseas. Forty-eight years after John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon walked into a television studio together for the first televised debate, these events are still the best look most citizens will get at their next president and vice president, and the best chance they have to assess their habits of mind, their political philosophies, their perspectives on our country and the world, and the things they want to do once in office. During the 2008 primaries, that opportunity was squandered. It would be a shame if it happened again.
Paul Waldman is senior fellow and director of special projects with Media Matters Action Network.
LOAD-DATE: September 24, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 23, 2008 Tuesday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
McCain unhinged raises questions of fitness
"The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around."
-- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
UNDER THE pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated.
This childish reflex provoked The Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."
Perhaps an old antagonism is involved in McCain's fact-free slander. His most conspicuous economic adviser is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who previously headed the Congressional Budget Office. There he was an impediment to conservatives, including then-Rep. Cox, who as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee persistently tried and generally failed to enlist CBO support for "dynamic scoring" that would estimate the economic growth effects of proposed tax cuts.
In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency.
For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive . McCain's Manichaean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning. Today, his campaign is creatively finding interstices in laws intended to restrict campaign giving and spending.
By a Gresham's Law of political discourse, McCain's Queen of Hearts intervention in the opaque financial crisis overshadowed a solid conservative complaint from the Republican Study Committee, chaired by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the RSC decried the improvised torrent of bailouts as a "dangerous and unmistakable precedent for the federal government both to be looked to and indeed relied upon to save private sector companies from the consequences of their poor economic decisions."
This letter, listing just $650 billion of the perhaps more than $1 trillion in new federal exposures to risk, was sent while McCain's campaign, characteristically substituting vehemence for coherence, was airing an ad warning that Obama favors "massive government, billions in spending increases."
The political left always aims to expand the permeation of economic life by politics. Today, the efficient means to that end is government control of capital. So, is not McCain's party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale.
Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary. That non sequitur might be politically necessary, but remember that government control of capital is government control of capitalism. Does McCain have qualms about this, or only quarrels?
On "60 Minutes" Sunday evening, McCain, saying "this may sound a little unusual," said that he would like to replace Cox with Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic attorney general of New York . McCain explained that Cuomo has "respect" and "prestige" and could "lend some bipartisanship." Conservatives have been warned.
Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.
It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?
George Will's column is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group. E-mail him at georgewill@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2008
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The Washington Post
September 23, 2008 Tuesday
Met 2 Edition
A New Landscape, the Same Proposals
BYLINE: Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
As the scale of the government's intervention transforms the nation's fiscal landscape, neither presidential candidate seemed ready yesterday to readjust his campaign promises to match a changing reality that could push the federal budget deficit next year toward $1 trillion.
Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain indicated they will not stand in the way of the Bush administration's $700 billion rescue of U.S. financial markets, and each offered his own proposals for making it more palatable to voters: Obama laid out a plan to overhaul federal contracting and save an estimated $40 billion a year, while McCain proposed an oversight board to monitor the bailout.
But advisers in both campaigns said they are not about to shelve their own plans to get the economy back on track -- or embrace more aggressive budget-cutting measures -- in the face of a short-term surge in the federal deficit.
"This is a major fiscal problem in the short run, but it doesn't alter the long-run fiscal picture," said Jason Furman, Obama's economic policy coordinator. "The biggest challenge we face in our economy over the next year is getting it moving again, creating jobs and relieving the squeeze on families. That's our overriding priority for the next year."
Said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's chief economic policy adviser and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office: "In terms of the numbers, obviously the landscape has changed. In terms of the [underlying] challenge, no, I don't think there is much change."
Given the drama on Wall Street, economists of all economic stripes say the candidates' reluctance to adjust to the new landscape, as well as their focus on such peripheral issues as lobbying ties to mortgage giant Fannie Mae, are turning the campaigns into a sideshow. The sheer size of the bailout could give the next president political cover to address long-festering fiscal problems, such as the burgeoning costs of Medicare and Medicaid, yet neither of the men vying for the job has shown an interest in taking advantage of it, they say.
"The U.S. fiscal situation is dramatically deteriorated from what it was," said Martin N. Baily, a former chairman of President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. "There is a debate which we need to have that is becoming more urgent: Our fiscal picture does not add up."
Bruce Bartlett, a Treasury official in the Reagan administration, said: "This is just a terrific opportunity for both of these guys to do a do-over. Most of these proposals were formulated when they were running to get their party's nominations. It looks ridiculous to keep peddling ideas that are no longer viable, as if nothing has changed. Then whoever is elected is at least elected on a plan that makes sense."
Even before the bailout plan was announced, the Congressional Budget Office estimated this month that the deficit for fiscal 2009 would reach $438 billion, already a record in dollar terms. If Treasury needs half the money it has sought for the bailout plan in 2009, as well as money already promised to seize Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns and the insurance giant American International Group, the deficit could approach $900 billion. As a percentage of the economy, that number would rival the highest deficits in history, recorded in the Reagan administration, said Rudolph G. Penner, another former CBO director, now at the Urban Institute.
Some, or even much, of that money could be recouped as the government tries to sell off the assets it plans to buy, but by the time the bailout is resolved, Washington will have to confront the retirement of the baby-boom generation as well as soaring Social Security and Medicare costs.
By buying the bad debt of collapsing financial firms, the government could stop panicked investors from withdrawing money, freeing up lending, boosting home sales and lifting the economy. But the current crisis, in large part, was created by a nation -- its individuals, companies and government -- living beyond its means, borrowing to prop up overconsumption. Swapping the private debt of banks and homeowners with public borrowing by the federal government changes nothing, said Douglas W. Elmendorf, a former Federal Reserve Board economist now at the Brookings Institution.
And while Obama and McCain have pledged that they would live within some fiscal constraints, neither has offered enough details about how they are going to pay for promised tax cuts, health-care plans and energy spending, said Leonard E. Burman, director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
"Both of them would dig the hole way deeper," he said.
Campaigning yesterday in Green Bay, Wis., Obama outlined proposals to tighten federal ethics and contracting rules and bring unprecedented scrutiny to the legislative process, including through a new clearinghouse to assess corporate tax breaks.
His speech, outlining an 11-page "Plan to Reform the Greed and Excesses of Washington," built on the regulatory overhaul for the financial services industry that he proposed last week. To curb the influence of lobbyists, Obama would have all bill writing be conducted in public. Congress holds public hearings on legislation, and lawmakers debate and vote in the open, but the conference committees where final language is crafted meet mostly behind closed doors.
Obama also would create a government agency "charged with identifying recipients of corporate subsidies and evaluating the effectiveness of these subsidies in promoting growth and opportunity." All corporate tax breaks would be easily searchable on a government Web site, and if the new entity deemed a provision to be a dud, it would be targeted for elimination.
McCain, seconding calls from Democratic leaders in Congress, said yesterday that any bailout bill must include an oversight board to account for the expenditures of public money. He said that executives of financial firms receiving federal bailout money should see their salaries limited to $400,000, the highest pay of a federal worker -- in that case, the president.
"We will not solve a problem caused by poor oversight with a plan that has no oversight," McCain said at a rally in Scranton, Pa.
Beyond the speeches, much of the day continued to be consumed by the kind of attacks and counterattacks that have dominated the campaign recently.
Among the issues yesterday: the $42 million "golden parachute" that McCain economic adviser Carly Fiorina received in 2005 after being ousted from Hewlett-Packard, a new McCain campaign ad suggesting Obama was "born of the corrupt Chicago political machine," a new Obama campaign ad criticizing McCain for a news article in which he suggested opening health care to competition "as we have done over the last decade in banking," and even the New York Times' coverage of McCain.
McCain said Obama had "declined to put forth a plan" to deal with the Wall Street meltdown, an assertion that is exaggerated at best. Obama said McCain "has fought time and time again against the common-sense rules of the road that could've prevented this crisis," neglecting to mention that his new brain trust on the crisis includes two Clinton administration Treasury secretaries, Robert E. Rubin and Lawrence H. Summers, who helped negotiate the deregulation of the financial services industries in 1999.
In an interview on Friday, Rubin said the law, named after its now-retired congressional sponsors -- Phil Gramm (Tex.), a top McCain economic adviser; Jim Leach (Iowa), who heads Republicans for Obama; and Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (Va.) -- "had no impact, zero," on the current crisis.
"I would hope the two candidates would have tried to bolster confidence and stop sniping over this," Penner said.
Staff writer Michael D. Shear contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Gerald Herbert -- Associated Press; Sen. John McCain greets Paul Teutul Sr., center, and Paul Teutul Jr., the stars of the "American Chopper" TV show, at a rally in Media, Pa.
IMAGE; By Chris Carlson -- Associated Press; Sen. Barack Obama greets supporters after a campaign event in Green Bay, Wis., where he outlined a "Plan to Reform the Greed and Excesses of Washington."
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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September 23, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
Hitting Hard on Debatable Points
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
THE AD
Narrator: Barack Obama. Born of the corrupt Chicago political machine.
Obama: In terms of my toughness, look, first of all, I come from Chicago.
Narrator: His economic adviser, William Daley. Lobbyist. Mayor's brother. His money man, Tony Rezko. Client. Patron. Convicted felon. His "political godfather," Emil Jones. Under ethical cloud. His governor, Rod Blagojevich. A legacy of federal and state investigations. With friends like that, Obama is not ready to lead.
ANALYSIS
This John McCain ad is mostly accurate and largely pointless.
The one serious distortion is in claiming that Barack Obama was "born" of the Chicago machine. Obama was actually an independent outsider who challenged the party establishment, both in running for the Illinois Senate and in unsuccessfully opposing U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush. Obama did use hardball tactics on occasion but was not embraced by the party apparatus until later in his career.
Three of the four names included here do no damage to the senator from Illinois and serve mainly to reinforce the impression that Obama swims with sharks. Bill Daley may be a lobbyist and the brother of Mayor Richard Daley, but he is a former commerce secretary with a solid reputation. State Sen. Emil Jones gave Obama a boost early in his career, in part by assigning him to shepherd ethics legislation through the legislature. Obama has no connection to allegations that Jones has helped some of his own family members on the state payroll. And while Blagojevich is Obama's governor -- indeed, he is the governor of Oprah Winfrey and Mike Ditka and every other Illinois resident -- he and Obama are not close politically.
Rezko is the exception, a major albatross for Obama. He was a key fundraiser for Obama and sold him a patch of land adjacent to Obama's home -- a deal that the Democratic nominee has called a "boneheaded mistake." But the Chicago businessman, who was convicted of corruption charges in June, was not under investigation at the time of these dealings.
While the ad is a stretch, McCain is trying to tie Obama to the specter of ethically challenged big-city machine politics, undoubtedly hoping the word "Chicago" will turn off suburban and rural voters.
THE AD
We've seen what Bush-McCain policies have done to our economy. Now John McCain wants to do the same to our health care. McCain just published an article praising Wall Street deregulation. Said he'd reduce oversight of the health insurance industry, too. Just "as we have done over the last decade in banking." Increasing costs and threatening coverage. A prescription for disaster. John McCain. A risk we just can't afford to take.
ANALYSIS
This Barack Obama commercial is based on John McCain's own words, although those words are subject to interpretation.
An article in the obscure journal Contingencies, published under McCain's name, says: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous, nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation." The senator from Arizona certainly sounds like the strong advocate of deregulation he has always been. The timing makes McCain sound as if he is defending the loosening of federal rules on banks, now widely blamed for the current market turmoil.
The McCain camp contends that the Republican nominee was referring only to the regulatory change that allowed banks to operate across state lines. But because the article does not specify what he has in mind, McCain leaves himself vulnerable to the charge that he endorsed the full sweep of banking deregulation.
There is no evidence that McCain is "threatening coverage" for health care, and the "prescription for disaster" verdict is credited to the Boston Globe -- leaving out that the quote is from the paper's liberal editorial page.
For the spot to cite the "Bush-McCain policies" ignores the fact that McCain has broken with the president on certain issues, including how to ease the banking crisis. The commercial tries to paint McCain as partially responsible for the Wall Street meltdown, although congressional Democrats did little to change the policies in question.
Video of this ad can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2008
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September 23, 2008 Tuesday
Met 2 Edition
His Kind of Town;
Scranton Loves Biden, but Can It Warm to Obama?
BYLINE: Kevin Merida; Washington Post Staff Writer
Joe Biden was born at Mercy Hospital, went to school at St. Paul's, played baseball at Maloney Field, scrapped with local toughs, skinned his knees on the dirt roads. When he returns to his old Green Ridge neighborhood, where he spent the first 10 years of his life, he likes to pick up a "regular hoagie," the one with the special sauce, at Hank's Hoagies.
This has now become part of the official Democratic narrative for a prized city in this swing state. Scranton as Bidentown. Biden as Pennsylvania's third senator, not Delaware's senior one. This city of working-class charm and struggle has become a microcosm of all the fears and hopes and restlessness of Democrats who believe they should win this presidential election but are not convinced they will. Yesterday, John McCain brought his show to town and expressed doubts similar to Barack Obama's about the proposed massive government bailout. Someday soon, running mate Sarah Palin may show up nearby.
"It's unbelievable how close it is," says Mayor Christopher Doherty, a Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton in the primary but is backing Obama now. "I'm surprised. The country's in terrible shape, and it's a dead heat."
In talking to folks about Obama, Doherty has concluded: "He hasn't made the connection. They don't know him. Who'd you want to have a beer with? Who'd you leave your kids with? John McCain is winning that test."
Scranton embodies the strange mix of doubt and possibility that hangs over Obama's campaign, the sense that he is this generation's John F. Kennedy but hasn't yet closed the deal. In the primary, the state's political machinery was behind Clinton, who had the added benefit of having family roots in Scranton. And while Democrats outvoted Republicans nearly 6 to 1, Obama was drubbed by Clinton in northeastern Pennsylvania by margins that make some Democrats uneasy, especially in a battleground state seen as essential to retaking the White House.
Biden promised the Pennsylvania delegation at the Democratic National Convention that he would sell the ticket hard in this state, that Pennsylvania would get "an inordinate amount of resources" and that he himself would be a forceful presence here. "We cannot win without winning Pennsylvania," Biden said. "It is that simple." In 2000, Gore defeated George W. Bush in Lackawanna County, where this city is the county seat, 60 percent to 36 percent, and in 2004, John Kerry beat Bush, 56 percent to 42 percent.
The campaign even ran an early ad in this market emphasizing Biden's roots here. But those roots may not cure all in a region where Obama's top campaigners, a couple of popular Lackawanna County commissioners, received hate mail during the primary just for backing the Illinois senator. More than is sometimes acknowledged, residents say, this is a region wrestling with bitterness and backwardness, the kind that Aunie Frisch, who has Chinese ancestry, sometimes finds maddening.
"There have been several elderly people who have come up to me asking me, 'What nail salon do you work for?' I'm polite. I'm not going to scream at an old lady. But this is 2008," says Frisch, a 22-year-old graphic design major at Marywood University.
Many Scrantonians would like to believe in Obama, just as they would like to believe that their town is on the rise -- they've got the sizzling Triple-A level Yankees to be proud of, a downtown incubator center for start-up companies, the first medical school being built in the state in 50 years. They've got "The Office" to be proud of, NBC's hip, culty sitcom about the quirky cubicle life inside a fictional Scranton paper company.
But the bleak portraiture from a glorious past still darkens the cityscape -- the once teeming rag factory that no longer teems, the wallpaper factory that's now shuttered. No coal to talk about anymore, no iron. Just last month, Boscov's, described as the nation's largest family-owned department-store chain, filed for bankruptcy. Though its store in Scranton's Mall at Steamtown will remain open, Boscov's financial woes only added to the city's economic anxiety.
Despite $400 million in construction projects over the past seven years, Scranton is still a "did-you-know" kind of town. As in: Did you know that Scranton once produced virtually all of the country's silk? Did you know that the now-defunct Scranton Button Co. was once among the largest in the world? Did you know that Scranton has lost nearly half its population since Franklin Roosevelt was president?
"It's like learning to walk with a limp," says Tom Bell. "After a while, you don't even know you're limping."
Tom Bell runs an insurance firm, and the hunt for policyholders has grown more difficult as the years have gone by. Tom Bell is also a childhood friend of Joe Biden's, and the hunt for something to say about politics is not so difficult for him.
Of Obama, Bell says: "He's got to be tougher. He's got feet in both camps. But too often he seems to speak from his Ivy League, Chicago law firm camp." Of his schoolboy pal, Bell says: "Joe Biden represents my type of Democrat." Of Obama, Bell says: "I think sometimes he is, I hate to use this word, too nice." Of Biden, Bell says: "Joe is very well-known and very well-liked in this area." Of Obama, he says: "I think Obama comes across as a little too sophisticated."
And so it goes. Not that Tom Bell isn't for Obama. Of John McCain, he says: "I think something is wrong with him. I'm telling you -- something is wrong with him. Instead of him running for office, everybody should chip in and get him some therapy."
But Bell worries that Democrats have an energy policy "that is imaginary," an insecurity about their identity that is palpable, and not enough fight in them. "I'm very worried about this election," he says. "It would be hard for the Democrats to blow this election. And you know what? They're doing it."
Scranton was Biden's first stop after the Democratic National Convention, just as it was Kerry's first stop in 2004. He spent the afternoon at his old home on North Washington Avenue, a two-story gray Colonial with black shutters and a carpeted porch, now owned by Anne Kearns. It was here that the young Biden and his family lived with his grandparents, the Finnegans.
Biden spent nearly three hours with Kearns and her family and neighbors and a smattering of politicos, speaking in the back yard, where grilled hot dogs and hamburgers were served. Biden at one point was led up to the attic, where the bed he slept in as a boy had been kept all these years. "You're kidding me?" he said. At the request of the Kearnses, he signed his name on the wall with the inscription: "I am home."
Kearns was reflecting on this visit the other day, thinking that Obama is going to make it, with Joe's help. She is still the only one with an Obama yard sign in the neighborhood. Having taught for 20 years at Marywood University in the neighborhood, she has learned to listen to the kids. "When I saw all the young people going for him, I thought: That's what this country needs. I saw something new in Obama."
Jim Kennedy sat on the porch of the home he grew up in and spoke of the old. He was facing Kearns's back yard, with his white, blue-striped pants hiked up, pointing to the paved street that was once a dirt alley. That's where he and Joe played growing up. "For entertainment, we used to take popsicle sticks and weave them together and make rafts and sail them down the gutter in heavy rain. It was fun, man. It was fun."
Kennedy is an elected magistrate judge with an eighth-grade education, one of the city's colorful characters, now in his 33rd year on the bench. A record, he notes. He has remained a good friend of Biden's, and doesn't hesitate to tell all the childhood stories: about Joe's stuttering problems, about eating Joe's ice cream when Joe got his tonsils removed, about Joe's crush on the blonde next door.
Kennedy would sometimes pin Joe down and put spit on his hairy arms and rub the hair hard and make it curl up. "Little small ways of getting him." The sum of Kennedy's message: Joe is tough, authentic, irrepressible. Excellent vice presidential material. And most important, a real, native son.
* * *
Anyone who has ever stayed three nights in Scranton qualifies for hometown consideration. At Pat McMullen's bar, they have fun with this. The parents of Emmy-winning actor Jeremy Piven are from Scranton. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's wife. Judy McGrath, the MTV chief executive, is from Scranton. And Robert Reich, the former labor secretary. Let's not forget former Syracuse basketball star Gerry McNamara, a Scranton favorite. And the writer William Kotzwinkle, who collaborated on the novelization of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" -- he's a Scranton kid.
"Everybody's from Scranton," says Pat Sweeney, one of McMullen's bartenders, who happens to be off-duty this night. A good thing for him. This is an especially raucous night, as the Cowboys-Eagles game on "Monday Night Football" is airing on all TV sets. And strangely enough, virtually the entire crew of regulars is rooting for the Cowboys and not Pennsylvania's own team. What's that about?
Bars in general, and Irish bars particularly in this town, are the political trash-talking equivalent of the barbershop. Nothing is off limits in the bar, especially insulting Sarah Palin.
"If she loses, she's in Playboy a month later," says Sweeney dismissively. Seriously, though. "Can she run the country? Maybe," Sweeney continues, "but I'm going to go with Joe Biden. He's got more experience."
McMullen's is adorned with miniature helmets, political posters from the Kennedy era, sports jerseys, photos of notables, including a signed one from Biden. The ceiling is covered with vinyl placards containing messages like this one from Henny Youngman: "When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." As the night was winding down, Sweeney yelled out: "Hey, Joe Biden called! Everybody gets a free drink." To which the regulars heartily cheered. It was a setup for his punch line: "Sarah called, too. Everybody gets a free photo shoot!"
Chris Doherty likes jokes and guffaws as well as the next man. But he is also the mayor of a city that needs help. For him, this election is utterly serious.
"Cities like Scranton do not have the money to pay for all these infrastructure bills we have to pay." Street pavement, bridge replacement, water lines, making an older Northeastern city attractive so that it can compete for business with the newer Southwestern cities and remain vital. "We need the federal government to play a role in our lives," he says. "Republicans don't believe that. Democrats do."
He needs Barack Obama to win, but he worries. He has told Obama's staff that the candidate needs to do more retail campaigning here, not closed events like the one at the area glass factory recently. "He needs to be out."
Joe Pusateri, who works for a Wise potato chip distributor -- "I deliver chips" -- has a different view of the electorate here and a different feel for this election. "I think Obama's gonna win. Honest to God. Why would I lie? I'm not gonna lie."
When he is not delivering chips, he works for the Arena Football 2 league. Being around football, he says, has helped him to see equality better. "It's about time we had change in the country -- that we look at each other as Americans. Not black, white, Asian," he said. "We're all Americans. That's what we are. When 9/11 happened, all folk died. Right?"
He had just finished a delivery at Hank's Hoagies. He called Obama a fresh face, an educated man, somebody special. "This guy is not off the streets." And he is concerned, quite frankly, that McCain is "getting up there in age."
So he's going to vote for Obama then?
Joe Pusateri paused for a few seconds. No, he wasn't quite prepared to go that far.
"It's up in the air," he says. "I can't lie."
LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; By Butch Comegys -- Scranton Times-tribune; Sen. Joe Biden shares a laugh with Roxanne Pauline earlier this month when the native son returned to Scranton as Barack Obama's running mate.
IMAGE; By Gerald Herbert -- Associated Press; Sen. John McCain yesterday on Biden's old turf. The county voted Democratic in the 2000 and '04 elections.
IMAGE; Photos By Butch Comegys -- Scranton Times-tribune; Revisiting his roots: Sen. Joe Biden checks out a bedroom in what was his childhood home during a campaign stop earlier this month to Scranton.
IMAGE; Biden's mother, Jean, 91, joins him on the trip down memory lane. The vice presidential candidate "represents my type of Democrat," says one childhood pal.
IMAGE
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September 23, 2008 Tuesday
Regional Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A21
"The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around."
-- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."
To read the Journal's details about the depths of McCain's shallowness on the subject of Cox's chairmanship, see "McCain's Scapegoat" (Sept. 19, Page A22). Then consider McCain's characteristic accusation that Cox "has betrayed the public's trust."
Perhaps an old antagonism is involved in McCain's fact-free slander. His most conspicuous economic adviser is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who previously headed the Congressional Budget Office. There he was an impediment to conservatives, including then-Rep. Cox, who, as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, persistently tried and generally failed to enlist CBO support for "dynamic scoring" that would estimate the economic growth effects of proposed tax cuts.
In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people. McCain's Manichaean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning. Today, his campaign is creatively finding interstices in laws intended to restrict campaign giving and spending. (For details, see The Post of Sept. 17, Page A4; and the New York Times of Sept. 20, Page One.)
By a Gresham's Law of political discourse, McCain's Queen of Hearts intervention in the opaque financial crisis overshadowed a solid conservative complaint from the Republican Study Committee, chaired by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the RSC decried the improvised torrent of bailouts as a "dangerous and unmistakable precedent for the federal government both to be looked to and indeed relied upon to save private sector companies from the consequences of their poor economic decisions." This letter, listing just $650 billion of the perhaps more than $1 trillion in new federal exposures to risk, was sent while McCain's campaign, characteristically substituting vehemence for coherence, was airing an ad warning that Obama favors "massive government, billions in spending increases."
The political left always aims to expand the permeation of economic life by politics. Today, the efficient means to that end is government control of capital. So, is not McCain's party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale. Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary. That non sequitur might be politically necessary, but remember that government control of capital is government control of capitalism. Does McCain have qualms about this, or only quarrels?
On "60 Minutes" Sunday evening, McCain, saying "this may sound a little unusual," said that he would like to replace Cox with Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic attorney general of New York who is the son of former governor Mario Cuomo. McCain explained that Cuomo has "respect" and "prestige" and could "lend some bipartisanship." Conservatives have been warned.
Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.
It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?
georgewill@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2008
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September 23, 2008 Tuesday
Exhibition of grand old flags
BYLINE: By Deborah K. Dietsch , THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: ARTS ETC.; DESIGN; B08
Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama are far more reverent of the American flag than contenders of centuries past. Flag desecration wasn't a concern for candidates of the 1800s and early 1900s, who routinely plastered their names and faces over the red, white and blue to advertise their campaigns.
A fascinating but short-term exhibition of political banners dating from 1840 to 1904 at George Washington University's Luther W. Brady Art Gallery reveals the imaginative use of Old Glory by winners and losers alike. The show closes Saturday with a round-table discussion from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the gallery on flag history and collecting.
The president with the shortest term in office, William Henry Harrison, started the tradition of political flags, and the earliest design in the show advertises his 1840 campaign. It centers on a log cabin superimposed over 17 stripes instead of the standard 13 representing the original Colonies.
An 1844 campaign flag for Henry Clay is more irreverently emblazoned with a raccoon thumbing its nose at the moon - the animal was the symbol of the Whig Party - while other flags from the 1800s sport platform slogans and portraits of presidential hopefuls.
These artful designs represent about half of the 80-piece collection amassed by GW alumnus Mark Shenkman, a New York money manager who serves on the university's board of trustees. Five years ago, Mr. Shenkman began buying the banners after he came across an American flag painting by artist Jasper Johns being sold for millions of dollars on the art market.
"I realized I could have the genuine article for significantly less," he said by telephone, noting that the flags advertising losing candidates are more valuable than those for winners.
His first acquisition, a 36-star parade flag, was made for the 1868 Republican presidential campaign of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax. Greeting visitors in the first gallery, it portrays Grant and Colfax in a circular medallion surrounded by stars. Such a depiction of both presidential and vice-presidential candidates on a flag is highly unusual, and just three or four examples of this style are known to exist, according to the exhibit text.
In addition to flags, Mr. Shenkman and his wife, Rosalind, collect patriotic textiles and kerchiefs. The exhibit displays several engaging examples, including a sepia-toned bandanna made in 1852 to advertise presidential candidate Gen. Winfield Scott, who is pictured in front of his horse.
The rarest flag in the show, according to the collector, portrays the bespectacled newspaper editor Horace Greeley, who lost the 1872 presidential election to Grant. Another of Grant's losing competitors, Gen. Horatio Seymour, who ran in 1868, is promoted by a banner superimposing a $5 bill over the stripes. It is meant to criticize the devaluing of the dollar under Abraham Lincoln, whose name is shortened to "Abram" on another flag.
Apparent throughout the show is the freewheeling interpretation of the Stars and Stripes as a promotional device. Bold, graphic impact appeared to be more important for the candidates than the accurate representation of our Colonies and states, and the orientation of their symbols.
A portrait of Stephen Douglas, who ran against Lincoln in 1860, is surrounded by 44 stars, even though there were just 33 states in the Union at the time. A flag supporting Grover Cleveland is presented backward with the stars printed in the upper right corner.
In 1905, Congress banned the use of the flag in such advertisements, but even after that law was passed, the practice of adding text and images to the Stars and Stripes continued. Seven years later, President William Howard Taft issued an executive order regulating the proportions of the flag and arrangement of the stars.
At the end of the show, a greater respect for the flag is evident in several banners. Portraits of the men who ran for president and vice president in 1900, for example, are placed next to Old Glory rather than on top of it.
However, as deference to our national emblem increased, the political banners became less visually appealing. The 20th-century political ads in the exhibit merely appeal to patriotic sentiment rather than the distinctive punch of each campaign, as reflected in the earlier, more whimsical manipulations of stars and stripes.
WHEN YOU GO
WHAT: "Stars and Stripes: The Political Flag Collection of Mark and Rosalind Shenkman"
WHERE: Luther W. Brady Art Gallery, George Washington University, 805 21st St. NW, second floor
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday
ADMISSION: Free
PHONE: 202/994-1525
WEB SITE: www.gwu.edu/~bradyart
LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2008
GRAPHIC: A campaign kerchief for Zachary Taylor (above) and banners promoting Ulysses S. Grant and running mate Schuyler Colfax in 1868 and Stephen Douglas in 1860 all freely used the flag. [3 Photos, NO CREDIT]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 23, 2008 Tuesday
BYLINE: By Victor Morton, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: PLUGGED IN - POLITICS; INSIDE BLOGOTICS; B03
Ad wars I
The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama put out a hard-hitting ad last week, accusing an ad campaign led by abortion survivor Gianna Jessen of distorting his votes on the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, and accusing Sen. John McCain of opposing abortion in the three "hard cases" - rape, incest and the life of the mother. Too bad it was basically all false, according to conservative bloggers.
The ad featuring Miss Jessen "has produced a hysterical reaction from Team O that pretty much has become a One-Note Charlie when responding to any criticism," wrote Ed Morrissey at Hot Air (www.hotair.com) in a post titled "Obama ad lies about Obama's infanticide vote."
"The record here is very, very clear. Obama initially said that he opposed the bill in Illinois because it didn't have the 'neutrality clause' included in the federal version of the legislation," Mr. Morrissey wrote, referring to provisions in the bill stating it did not affect the constitutional right to abortion. "As documentation proved, Obama voted against it even with the neutrality clause added. The Obama campaign finally acknowledged that Obama had lied about his position a month ago. Why? Because it would have actually forced doctors to provide care for live infants from abortions - or in other words, it would have worked."
Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek (www.jillstanek.com), the nurse whose expose of babies surviving abortion attempts in a Chicago hospital led to the Illinois law in question, pointed out other deceptions.
"Obama ad Deception #1: Insinuating the BornAliveTruth.org Gianna ad was issued by the John McCain campaign, which it clearly was not," an especially ironic charge since the pro-life community has long been suspicious of Mr. McCain.
"Obama ad Deception #2: Insinuating journalists were calling BornAliveTruth.org's Gianna ad 'one of the sleaziest ads ... ever seen' and 'truly vile' when close scrutiny of the dates in the Obama ad
showed they were written September 10, 2008, 6 days before the Gianna ad began airing" Screen captures on Mrs. Stanek's site show the quotes from pro-Obama columnists Joe Klein of Time and E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post referred to an earlier McCain ad about Mr. Obama's support for sex education in kindergarten.
Ad wars II
In the flap over Sen. John McCain's "celebrity" ads featuring Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, several prominent liberals said it was racist to mention a black man in the same breath as two nubile young white women. Apparently it's now also racist to mention one in the same breath as another middle-aged black man followed by an elderly white woman.
Time's Karen Tumulty, at the magazine's Swampland blog, wrote a post titled "McCain Plays the Race Card," referring to an ad attacking Sen. Barack Obama's ties to Franklin Raines, who profited handsomely from his time starting in 1999 as CEO of now-moribund mortgage giant Fannie Mae. "This is hardly subtle: Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman."
The evidence: "This ad doesn't even mention a far more significant tie - that of Jim Johnson, the former Fannie Mae chairman who had to resign as head of Obama's vice presidential search team after it was revealed he got a sweetheart deal on a mortgage from Countrywide Financial. Instead, it relies on a fleeting and tenuous reference in a Washington Post Style section story to suggest that Obama's principal economic adviser is former Fannie Mae Chairman Frank Raines. Why? One reason might be that Johnson is white; Raines is black."
But that evidence fell apart the next day when Ms. Tumulty's Swampland co-blogger Ana Marie Cox noted that the McCain campaign "just released this ad, focusing on Obama's relationship with former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson, who is white. I'm told it was produced several days ago."
The reaction of Ms. Tumulty to her smear? It was the McCain team's fault: The Johnson ad "raises the question of why the campaign didn't air that one in the first place."
Priorities
Sarah Palin was disinvited from a rally at the United Nations against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the reason given by the sponsoring group beggars belief, according to the pseudonymous blogger Jewish Republican Girl (http://jewishrepublicangirl.wordpress.com).
"First Hillary Clinton canceled her invitation to speak at a NY rally to stop Iran from getting nukes because having a prominent Democratic woman speak alongside a prominent Republican woman, Sarah Palin, is 'partisan.' Then the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) called to have Sarah Palin removed from the speakers' list," she wrote.
The statement from Chairman Marc R. Stanley, quoted by Republican Jewish Girl, reads as follows: "Monday's protest against Ahmadinejad is too important to be tainted by partisanship. Unfortunately, the campaign of Senator John McCain is much more interested in scoring political points than insuring there is bipartisan solidarity around the anti-Ahmadinejad efforts. Therefore, we call upon the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations to withdraw the invitation to Governor Sarah Palin and we applaud Senator Hillary Clinton's decision to not attend the rally after the attendance of Palin was announced."
To which the Republican Jewish Girl responded: "But for the NJDC to 'applaud' Clinton's decision not to attend because Palin was going seems a contradiction of priorities. Wouldn't the NJDC want to have a strong showing of Democratic players at the anti-Ahmadinejad rally? And the second sentence is complete [expletive]. ... There was bipartisan solidarity until Clinton decided she couldn't show up Why should Palin base her decision on whether or not to come on Clinton, or Obama for that matter? It's the Obama camp here that's playing politics and not sending a strong message to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and this argument to disinvite Palin is the stupidest I've ever heard."
Joe Eagleton?
It would be easy to dismiss this as tinfoil-hat talk about the presidential race - except that one of the leading liberal news sources argues for it with a straight face.
The idea is compelling to some voters, who are forwarding a viral e-mail that states Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. will drop off the ticket after the vice-presidential debate the first week of October and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will take his No. 2 slot on the Democratic ticket. Adding fuel to the fire is a Snopes.com article that does not debunk the e-mail, but rather says the status of the rumor is "undetermined."
Sounds ridiculous on any number of fronts, both tactical and legal, but that didn't stop the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com).
"It's time to dump Biden and replace him with Sen. Hillary Clinton. I don't care how it's done. Campaign chief David Axelrod can figure that out. And the sooner the better. Because I'm starting to think that if Team-Obama doesn't do something dramatic fast, it's gonna lose this election," wrote blogger/columnist Andy Ostroy.
"To be sure, a Biden-Clinton switch would cause quite a stir in the media. They'd accuse him of all sorts of things, from being politically expedient and flip-flopping to being irrational and ill-equipped to be president. ... [But] these pundits don't constitute an appreciable voting block What they think and feel would be utterly dwarfed by the euphoria from Clinton's faithful supporters. It's a pretty safe bet that an Obama/Clinton ticket would capture virtually all of these loyal Clintonistas. It's also a safe bet that many of those highly coveted 18-49-year-old women who polls show migrated to McPalin this past week would drop the spunky little hockey mom in a heartbeat for Hillary. Lastly, it's an even safer bet that Obama's current voters would stick with him as well. So, where's the downside?"
* Contact Victor Morton at vmorton@washingtontimes.
LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2008
GRAPHIC: Gianna Jessen [NO CREDIT]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 23, 2008 Tuesday
McCain ad links Obama to old Chicago corruption
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni and Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
John McCain lashed out Monday at Barack Obama's political pedigree, tying his rival to notorious Chicago machine politics as the Republican struggled to reclaim the advantage that slipped to Mr. Obama as the Wall Street mess has unfolded.
In a new ad, Mr. McCain accuses his Democratic opponent of running the same "corrupt Chicago political machine" as convicted felon and Obama patron Tony Rezko and the Daley family, which controls Chicago politics.
Mr. McCain's campaign said they are raising the corruption issue because the press has failed to do so.
"Senator Obama very directly has introduced the issue of associations in this campaign, I think, raising fundamentally that you can tell something about people by the company they keep," top McCain aide Steve Schmidt told reporters.
As the financial sector spiraled downward last week so did Mr. McCain's poll numbers, dragged down by his own confusion over the state of the economy and knocked off message by his own surrogates. What had been a slight three-percentage-point lead in the polls turned,
and Mr. Obama now leads by 2.7 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls.
And a CNN poll released Monday showed that 52 percent of likely voters believe Mr. Obama would be better at handling the economy compared with 44 percent for Mr. McCain.
Sensing an opening, Mr. Obama sought to press his advantage, working to link Mr. McCain with President Bush, whose popularity has dipped below 30 percent in some national polls.
"We did not arrive at this moment by some accident of history," he said in Green Bay, Wis. "We are in this mess because of a bankrupt philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to the rest of us."
He hit his Republican rival for failing to change the "greed and irresponsibility" of Washington during his 26 years there and said his ties to lobbyists would prevent real change from coming to the nation's capital.
As the campaign proceeds, the two camps have stepped up their on-air attacks through ever-harsher commercials.
Mr. Obama's campaign took issue with the new McCain ad, saying it was an effort to distract from Mr. McCain's stumbling last week and from reports, including one Tuesday in the New York Times, examining McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In a statement, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said that rather than embracing Chicago's political machine, Mr. Obama ran against it.
"Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate as an independent Democrat. He took on the Chicago Democratic organization in a primary to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. And in both Illinois and Washington, he has challenged the Old Guard for landmark ethics reforms," Mr. Burton said.
But Mr. McCain's campaign said the ad, which will run nationally and in battleground states, is a fair response to what aides said have been repeated personal attacks by Mr. Obama.
The ad ties Mr. Obama to four Chicago figures, including Obama economic adviser William Daley, brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, whose election machine has been accused of dirty politics, and Rezko, who was convicted of fraud and bribery.
In talking with reporters, Mr. Schmidt said the press owes voters more scrutiny of Mr. Obama's ties to William Ayers, an early Obama backer who gained notoriety as a leader in the Weather Underground, which bombed government buildings in protest of the Vietnam War.
Mr. Schmidt took particular shots at the New York Times for its story yesterday concerning Mr. Davis.
"Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today, not by any standard, a journalistic organization. It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization," he said, without mentioning that the newspaper endorsed Mr. McCain during the Republican primary.
As Congress considered a new $700 billion plan, Mr. Obama criticized the largest government bailout in history.
"We cannot give a blank check to Washington with no oversight and accountability when no oversight and accountability is what got us into this mess in the first place," he said.
He also outlined his already announced plan for a more transparent government, saying the nation must "get to work immediately on reforming the broken politics and the broken government that allowed this to crisis to happen in the first place."
He said an Obama White House would forbid the "revolving door" of lobbying and then entering government with a two-year ban on working on anything related to former employers and a permanent ban on lobbying the administration after leaving.
Mr. McCain, meanwhile, said Mr. Obama has been slow to come up with solutions to the financial crisis. He said he is "greatly concerned" by the plan, which he said surrenders too much power to the executive branch without any accountability.
"When we are talking about a trillion dollars of taxpayer money, 'trust me' just isn't good enough," he said in Scranton, Pa.
LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 22, 2008 Monday
Final Edition
What Happened to Straight Talk?
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. A-19
The problem wasn't that John McCain said, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong" as Wall Street was imploding last week.
The problem was that he didn't stand by his own words.
Democrat Barack Obama instantly seized on the quote for a hard-hitting campaign ad. The seven words became Exhibit A in Obama's case that Republican McCain is wrong and out of touch. But, so what?
If McCain believed what he said, he should have stuck to his position and defended it with some examples. That would have shown real straight talk. He could have claimed the banner of hope and optimism.
Even with economists willing to back him up, though, it wouldn't have been easy. In the continuous news cycle, complicated issues get boiled down to sound bites and slogans.
McCain didn't need to remind people that during the primaries last year he acknowledged that economics isn't his strong suit. By not sticking to his words, McCain left the impression that he didn't know how bad the economic mess is or that he was just blowing political smoke - or both.
McCAIN ALSO called for a 9/11-style commission to study what brought on the economic woes and how to prevent another catastrophe. Obama jumped on the idea as typical Washington-speak for not solving problems.
To be sure, the nation's economic picture seems to darken by the day. Joblessness has soared, as have mortgage foreclosures. Banks are teetering, the government is in major bailout mode, and the financial markets appear to be in free fall. A Page One headline in The Wall Street Journal Thursday declared: "Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight."
How bad is it? So bad that the White House refused to say the fundamentals are strong. After saying for months that the economy is strong, press secretary Dana Perino wouldn't say it after McCain did, claiming to do so would put the president in the middle of the presidential race.
For his part, the president canceled a trip to help raise money for GOP candidates to stay in the White House and monitor the economic situation. Translation: It would have looked bad for him to be glad-handing fellow Republicans when the financial world was spinning out of control. This is the Katrina lesson applied to the financial hurricane.
At this point in the campaign, McCain obviously didn't want a repeat of the storm that surrounded his former economic adviser, Phil Gramm, when he dismissed people worried about the economy as whiners.
But McCain hadn't insulted voters. Nor had he said the economy was a banana split with a cherry on top.
After noting "tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and on Wall Street," he said, "People are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult times."
Instead of standing firm, McCain did what Washington politicians do when something they say ricochets around the talk-filled universe. He waffled, and then he caved. First, said he meant to say that American workers are strong. And then he scurried away from his words entirely and declared the economy in "a total crisis."
He also reversed himself on whether taxpayers should bail out the insurance giant AIG, first saying no, then yes. It was like watching him play both courts in a tennis match.
McCAIN AND Obama both say more financial regulation is needed. That's been a consistent position for Obama. McCain is strongly for deregulation unless he's for more regulation.
Interestingly, New York's billionaire independent mayor, Michael Bloomberg, did stand by McCain's remark.
"America's great strength is its diversity, its hard work, its good financial statements, its broad capital markets, its enormous natural resources," Bloomberg told a news conference Monday, Politico reported.
Bloomberg, who contemplated an independent run for president, hasn't endorsed either Obama or McCain.
The mayor told an audience at Georgetown University Wednesday that what he looks for in a presidential candidate is intelligence and a pragmatic approach to problems.
He said the public chooses the person they believe is most honest and straightforward. That's hard to measure, Bloomberg said, so people vote their instincts.
What do you think? E-mail mmercer@mediageneral.com or comment at mgwashington.com.
LOAD-DATE: September 25, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 22, 2008 Monday
Suburban Edition
This time of year, as I watch college and pro football on an endless loop Saturdays and Sundays -- Toni, a.k.a. She Could Be The One III, slips me pancakes under the door of my study for sustenance, and the kids, whose names escape me at the moment, are restricted to the southeast end of the condo -- I've noticed that the business of America is selling everything but soap to captive American males.
Couch Slouch remains America's Viewer and, thus, America's Commercial Viewer, America's Slogan Buster and America's Product Tester, which brings us to our second annual survey of the vast wasteland of ads littering televised sports:
Wendy's: "It's waaaay better than fast food." Really? Who's in the kitchen, Bobby Flay?
Pizza Hut: "Now get pasta from Pizza Hut." This might seem like a small point, but wouldn't I want to get, uh, pizza from Pizza Hut?
BlackBerry: "Life on BlackBerry." I have enough trouble with life in L.A. -- I don't need high-tech complications.
AT&T: Bill Kurtis "just found the Internet." Congratulations -- welcome to the 20th century. For his next trick, maybe he can find my career.
Cadillac Escalade Hybrid: First of all, who do you know -- still living -- who owns a Cadillac? Secondly, if you're going to be a Cadillac Man, are you going hybrid? Please. A Cadillac has no cachet being environmentally correct -- with a Caddy, you're thinking greed, not green. If you're trying to make an impression, you want the gas-guzzling, road-hogging, lust-and-power '78 Cadillac Eldorado, my friends.
Cialis: "Now for daily use." For daily use? I'll be honest with you: I've been an adult for quite a while now and I cannot recall a time in which sex was part of my daily routine.
Viagra: I am NOT a machine.
Allstate: "You're in good hands." No, I'm in therapy.
(Election-Season Column Intermission: The moment John McCain took Sarah Palin, Barack Obama should've countered with Phyllis George.)
Dodge: "The all-new Dodge Journey." I'm glad it's "all-new." I thought the engine and the cup holders might be used.
PNC: "Leading the way." Where? And with whom? Note: I have no idea what PNC is.
C2 ING: "Your future. Made easier." My past makes that impossible.
John Hancock: "The future is yours." No, it's my mortgage lender's. By the way, how come everyone is obsessing on my future?
Ford: "Drive one." I'd love to, except it's always in the shop being repaired.
Comcast: "It's Comcastic!" If we're going to make up words, I have one: "It's crockcastic!"
Citi: "Citi never sleeps." I wouldn't sleep either if I could spend somebody else's money 24-7.
Chrysler Town & Country: "Everything you want in a minivan. Everything." You know, I really don't want people eating fondue and watching TV in my minivan. Speaking of which, exactly how much TV do we need to watch? I mean, are your kids so unruly, bored and restless that if they don't see "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" on the seven-minute drive to soccer practice, they will revolt in the back seat?
Samsung: It's the official HDTV of the NFL and Norman Esiason is the pitchman. Frankly, I'm thinking transistor radio.
Charles Schwab: "Talk to Chuck." You talk to Chuck -- I'm watching the Discovery Channel.
Coors Light: Coors Light + Brian Billick = Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
Budweiser: Beechwood aging, my butt.
Bud Light Lime: Not in this lifetime.
American Express: "Are you a cardmember?" No, I'm all cash all the time, baby.
Avodart: "Shrink it." Nobody touches my prostate. Nobody.
Mac: I love Macs. They don't have a slogan because they don't need one.
Ask The Slouch
Q. Were you able to recommend any therapists to Vince Young? (Dave Singleton; Milwaukee)
A. You know, someone like Tony Soprano -- he's running a mob family, it's a cutthroat business, he's responsible for whacking a couple people a week -- needs a shrink. Vince Young just needs better pass protection and a tighter spiral.
Q. With Lance Armstrong back on board, do you already have Tour de France fever? (Brian Gehr; Columbia, S.C.)
A. If you're out there listening, Lance, I have two words for you: We just don't care that much. (Okay, that's six words.) You're riding a bike, across France, in a doped-up sport, on a network nobody's ever heard of. Good luck and God speed.
Q. I am a venture capitalist with several hundred million dollars and need your opinion: In these troubled times, which is a better long-term investment, Lehman Brothers or the St. Louis Rams? (Michael Becker; St. Louis)
A. Pay the man, Shirley.
Q. Is it true the Cleveland Browns didn't give Braylon Edwards a flu shot this year since there's only a 50-50 chance of him catching anything? (Ken Kula; Independence, Ohio)
A. Pay this fella, too.
You, too, can enter the $1.25 Ask The Slouch Cash Giveaway. Just e-mail asktheslouch@aol.com and, if your question is used, you win $1.25 in cash!
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 22, 2008 Monday
Regional Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A15
The symmetry of sin is suddenly looking more equal. Last week, I flayed John McCain for dishonesty -- flagrant and repeated dishonesty -- about Barack Obama's proposals. Obama was by no means blameless, I argued, but his lapses were nowhere near as egregious as his opponent's. I stand by everything I wrote.
But a series of new Obama attacks requires a rebalancing of the scales: Obama has descended to similarly scurrilous tactics on the stump and on the air. On immigration, Obama is running a Spanish-language ad that unfairly lumps McCain together with Rush Limbaugh -- and quotes Limbaugh out of context. On health care, Obama misleadingly accuses McCain of wanting to impose a $3.6 trillion tax hike on employer-provided insurance.
Obama has been furthest out of line, however, on Social Security, stooping to the kind of scare tactics he once derided.
"If my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would have had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week," Obama said Saturday as he campaigned in that retiree-heavy state. "Millions of families would've been scrambling to figure out how to give their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, the secure retirement that every American deserves."
This is simply false -- even leaving aside the incendiary language about "privatizing" Social Security. As the invaluable FactCheck.org noted, the private account plan suggested by President Bush and backed by McCain would not have applied to anyone born before 1950. It would not have changed benefits by a single penny for current retirees like the nice Florida folks that Obama was trying to rile up. The sensible notion was that workers at or near retirement age should be able to rely on promised benefits and should not be subject to the vicissitudes of short-term market fluctuations.
There is a fair argument to be had about the wisdom of having workers invest part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts. This year's plunge buttresses the contention that such accounts are too risky to comprise even part of what was conceived, after all, to serve as a safety net.
But Obama's cartoon version of private accounts is not what Bush suggested, and it certainly is not something being peddled by McCain now. Under Bush's plan, workers would have been able to invest less than a third of their Social Security taxes in private accounts. Unless they specifically chose a riskier course, workers, beginning at age 47, would have had their investments put in "life-cycle portfolios" that shifted from high-growth funds to more secure bonds as retirement approached.
Obama's ads on Social Security are equally misleading. "Cutting benefits in half, risking Social Security on the stock market," it warns. "The Bush-McCain privatization plan. Can you really afford more of the same?"
Cutting benefits in half? As FactCheck notes, "this is a rank misrepresentation." No one at or near retirement age would have been affected. Those retiring in the future would not have received benefits as big as what they have been promised under current law -- but those promises cannot be paid for under the current system or even through the payroll tax increase on the wealthy that Obama has proposed.
The Bush plan would have limited benefits for some workers to growing at the rate of inflation rather than at the generally faster pace of wages. In other words, these workers would be getting benefits equal in real dollar value to those received by current retirees. But under the "progressive price indexing" approach endorsed by the president, lower-income workers would continue to receive all their promised benefits; medium-income workers would have their benefits reduced somewhat; and high-income workers would take the biggest hit.
The Obama campaign stretches the truth beyond recognition when it says that this would cut benefits in half. Under progressive price indexing, the average-earning worker would see a 28 percent cut in promised benefits -- in 2075. In other words, trims of that magnitude would affect workers not yet born. Today's average-earning 25-year-old would experience much smaller reductions in promised benefits upon reaching retirement age -- more like 16 percent.
And the only way the Obama campaign can inflate the supposed benefit cut to "half" is by assuming that the change in calculating benefit growth would be applied to all workers, not just the top tier. In that case, workers not yet born would get 49 percent of the benefits not yet promised to them by 2075. Doubt these numbers? They come from Jason Furman, now the Obama campaign's chief economic adviser.
To Democrats who worry about whether their nominee is willing to do whatever it takes to win: You can calm down.
marcusr@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By John Moore -- Getty Images; Barack Obama in Colorado last week.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 22, 2008 Monday
Suburban Edition
As the Battle Rages, It's Time to Check the Pulse of Swing States
BYLINE: Chris Cillizza And Ben Pershing
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
With new national polling numbers coming out nearly every day in the presidential fight between Barack Obama and John McCain, it's easy to forget that the race for the White House remains a state-by-state battle for electoral votes.
To keep the eyes of the political world in the right place, The Fix will use the remaining Mondays before the general election to highlight several battleground states where either candidate appears to be soaring or slipping.
Away we go!
· Florida: Obama went on television in the Sunshine State early and often, spending more than $8 million on TV ads before McCain started his advertising this month. It appeared as though the Democrat's spending had gone for naught as polling seemed to show the Republican with a solid single-digit lead. But the most recent polls suggest Obama and McCain are essentially tied in the state; a Time-CNN poll conducted early this month showed both candidates receiving 48 percent of the vote, and a Research 2000 survey in the field at the same time put McCain at 46 percent and Obama at 45 percent. A St. Petersburg Times poll released yesterday showed McCain leading 47 percent to 45 percent.
· Minnesota: Long considered a shoo-in state for Obama, Minnesota appears to have returned to competitiveness after the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. A poll by the Minneapolis Star Tribune put the race at a dead heat -- 45 percent each for McCain and Obama -- while the newly minted Big Ten Battleground Poll, conducted by two University of Wisconsin political science professors, showed Obama with 47 percent and McCain with 45 percent. In a state as "Wild" for hockey as Minnesota -- Republican Sen. Norm Coleman is running for reelection on the slogan "he brought hockey back" -- could McCain's growth of late be related to the "hockey mom" effect?
· Indiana: When Obama passed over home-state Hoosier Sen. Evan Bayh, it was widely assumed that Indiana, which hasn't voted for a Democrat at the presidential level since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, was off the table for the Democrats. A series of new polls challenge that assumption, most notably a survey conducted by J. Ann Selzer, of Selzer & Co., that had Obama at 47 percent and McCain at 44 percent. (Political junkies will remember that Selzer, who is based in Des Moines, nailed the order of finish in the Iowa Democratic caucuses this year.) The reason for the competitiveness? Indiana's economy has been hit hard by the collapse of the manufacturing sector, and voters might think a change of the party in charge in Washington is the best way to voice their disapproval.
Social Security Makes Comeback
The financial meltdown is having an impact on political races up and down the ballot, as it adds to voters' feelings of insecurity and pushes economic issues front and center. But the crisis may be having another effect on House and Senate races by bringing back a vintage issue (circa 2005) -- Social Security.
Three years ago, Democrats had a big time tarring Republicans for their support of President Bush's dead-on-arrival Social Security plan, which sought to partially privatize the retirement program by allowing retirees to put their money in a variety of investments, including the stock market.
Now that the Dow Jones industrial average has been swinging up and down hundreds of points a day, Democrats are trying to repeat their efforts, reminding voters which Republicans backed Bush's plan.
In Pennsylvania's 11th District, where Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D) is fighting to keep his job, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is running an ad against GOP candidate Lou Barletta, featuring "regular people" calling Barletta "George Bush's friend, not mine." Barletta, they say, "supported privatizing Social Security. Too risky for me."
And in Illinois' 11th District, an open-seat race to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Weller (R), the DCCC has been sending out mailings accusing Republican Marty Ozinga of backing "tax cuts that put our Social Security and Medicare in danger."
Individual Democratic candidates are also attempting to attack their GOP opponents on Social Security, and DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) predicts, "You're going to see a big uptick in this issue."
Barack Obama got in on the act Friday, asking attendees at a Miami rally to "imagine if you had some of your Social Security money in the stock market right now."
But Republicans scoff at the notion that Democrats will gain any traction on Social Security and suggested that Democrats were trying to distract from the real problems facing Congress.
"Clearly, they are not serious about finding solutions to this country's very serious economic challenges," said Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
And will a stray line from Obama, an ad or a piece of direct mail really serve to put Social Security back on the front burner, particularly since the major debate over Bush's reform plan happened three years ago? The Monday Fix will keep an eye on those polls in Florida.
4 DAYS: The first presidential debate will be in Oxford, Miss. Watch how both campaigns seek to lower expectations this week in the run-up to the clash at Ole Miss.
10 DAYS: In one of the most anticipated moments of the campaign, Sen. Joe Biden and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin square off in a debate in Mrs. Fix's home town, St. Louis. Get the popcorn popped and the Raisinets ready!
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE
IMAGE
IMAGE; By Carolyn Kaster -- Associated Press; Reviving a 2005 issue, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is running an ad in which "regular people" say GOP hopeful Lou Barletta, left, backed privatizing Social Security. Barletta is looking to unseat Rep. Paul Kanjorski in Pennsylvania's 11th District.
IMAGE; By Susan Walsh -- Associated Press
IMAGE
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 22, 2008 Monday
Met 2 Edition
Virginians Giving At Record Pace to Obama, McCain
BYLINE: Anita Kumar; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Virginia's status as a battleground state in the presidential election for the first time in more than four decades has led to a dramatic increase in donations from state residents, especially among Democrats in Northern Virginia.
Virginians have donated a record $25.3 million to candidates during this two-year election cycle, more than 85 percent of that from Northern Virginia donors, according to campaign finance reports filed last month. The total is nearly double the $14.2 million given during the same period in the run-up to the 2004 election and more than four times the $6.3 million raised before the 2000 election.
The Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, received $8.1 million from Virginia donors through July 31, and the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, took in $5 million. The rest went to other candidates who ran in the party primaries.
Virginians have given far more to Democrats than to Republicans -- $15.9 million compared with $9.3 million -- in this election cycle, the first time in at least 20 years that the GOP has not led the presidential money battle in the historically conservative state.
The boost in fundraising is in line with a national trend and is partly attributable to the prolonged nomination battle between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. But in Virginia, the increase in giving to Democrats has far exceeded what has occurred in the rest of the nation. The surge in giving is firm evidence that Virginia Democrats think they can build on recent wins on the state level to capture the state's 13 electoral votes for the first time since 1964.
Donald S. Beyer Jr., a former Democratic lieutenant governor and a Northern Virginia car dealer, attributes the shift in giving to Obama, whom he calls "the most transformational leader in last 40 years." Beyer, Obama's mid-Atlantic finance chairman, and his wife, Megan Beyer, have raised more than $1.5 million for Obama. "People are very motivated," he said. "People are very, very excited."
Since before the primaries, Virginia has been the scene of unprecedented fundraising activity. Millions of dollars are being raised at swanky fundraisers at John and Jacqueline Kennedy's former home, Hickory Hill in McLean, and the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner, through small donations on the Internet and by bundlers who call and e-mail friends, colleagues and prior donors.
Virginia's proximity to Washington has also contributed to the money flow, as members of Congress, former White House officials and influential lobbyists, many of whom live in Northern Virginia, have held or headlined fundraisers, including former Republican senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee and former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota.
The increase does not necessarily mean that money raised in Virginia stays in Virginia. Obama and McCain are polling close across the country, and they have mounted aggressive campaigns in other battleground states, including Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Nonetheless, fundraisers for McCain and Obama said the state's status as "in play" has made their jobs much easier, with many donors writing checks without the usual arm-twisting and others contributing without having to be asked.
"The more Virginia is in play, the easier it becomes," said Bill Dean, chief executive of the Dulles-based engineering firm M.C. Dean, who has raised about $25,000 for McCain. "It's another pitch you can make."
Both candidates have poured money, paid staff and other resources into Virginia, where they have been airing ads for months. Obama's campaign has opened 43 offices and dispatched dozens of field operatives. Obama, his wife, Michelle, and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, have campaigned in the state more than a half-dozen times since Obama secured the nomination.
McCain's campaign recently named Virginia the state with the most voters reached by phone or door-to-door canvassing at night and on weekends. Two weeks ago, McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, rallied thousands of supporters in Fairfax City.
The McCain and Obama campaigns would not discuss their fundraising efforts in the state. Information about donations has come from interviews with volunteers and reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. The information includes only contributions of $200 or more.
Nationwide, Obama raised a record-setting $466 million as of Aug. 31, and McCain collected more than $217 million.
Angel Thomas, 26, a single mother who grew up in Fairfax County and now lives in Woodbridge, had not been involved in politics before this year. Thomas first noticed Obama when he gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, but she did not get involved in his campaign until February, after watching his success in the primaries.
"I was really excited he was winning, and I wanted to do whatever I could to help him," she said.
Thomas, who works at Northern Virginia Community College and graduated from college $40,000 in debt, said she was sold on Obama after hearing about his proposal to offer a $4,000 tax credit for college in exchange for community service. She began volunteering for his campaign, canvassing neighborhoods and calling potential donors. And she donated whenever she could -- sometimes as little as $5 -- for a total of about $200.
Contributions to Obama from small donors have been credited with much of his fundraising success, but he and McCain have counted on well-connected bundlers to increase their Virginia totals. Many are elected officials, entrepreneurs, lawyers or lobbyists who work in Washington and live in Virginia.
"I'm sure there are some lobbyists who are doing this because they only want a job as an undersecretary or they want to tell their clients they have access to [Obama or McCain]. There's no doubt about it," said Kevin Wolf, a lawyer with the Bryan Cave firm in Washington and an Obama bundler. "But I help because I want [Obama] to win."
Wolf said he raised campaign money for the first time in 2004 for then-Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) because he wanted to defeat President Bush. This year, he has collected $75,000 for Obama, partly from an afternoon reception at his house attended by 80 people, who each gave at least $500.
Fifty-two bundlers in Virginia are raising money for McCain, including 20 who have been registered federal lobbyists, according to Public Citizen, a national nonprofit consumer group. Among them are Orson Swindle, a former prisoner of war with McCain in Vietnam, who has collected more than $100,000; Dwight C. Schar, chairman of the NVR home-building company, who has collected more than $500,000; and U.S. Rep. Eric I. Cantor (R-Va.), who has collected more than $250,000. McCain's son, Douglas McCain, a commercial airline pilot in Virginia Beach, has helped raise $50,000.
Fourteen bundlers in Virginia are raising money for Obama, including two who have been registered federal lobbyists, according to Public Citizen. They include Thomas Perrelli, managing partner of the Washington law firm Jenner & Block, who has collected more than $500,000; William R. Harvey, president of the historically black Hampton University, who has collected more than $100,000; and Mark Feierstein, a Washington consultant, who collected more than $50,000.
Bobbie Kilberg, president of the Northern Virginia Technology Council and an unsuccessful Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, has raised more than $900,000 for McCain with her husband, William Kilberg. They have contacted potential donors, and they hosted two receptions and a sit-down dinner, all attended by McCain, at their McLean home last year.
Kilberg said she was drawn to McCain because she felt "at home with his philosophy" and because his positions on issues most closely reflect hers. The McCains and the Kilbergs are friends who occasionally vacation together.
Donald Clark, a Virginia Beach trial lawyer who attended the Naval Academy with McCain, decided to raise money for him after he read a Wall Street Journal essay last year by former senator Phil Gramm of Texas describing McCain as the "right person at the right time to lead our country." In September 2007, Clark hosted a McCain fundraiser at his office that was attended by more than 75 people. He said he has raised more than $100,000 by talking up McCain's attributes without mentioning what he thinks are Obama's flaws.
"I've never done anything like this," he said.
Database editor Sarah Cohen and staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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September 22, 2008 Monday
Enough is Enough is Enough
BYLINE: By Andrew Breitbart, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; BIG HOLLYWOOD; A04
With George Bush off the front pages for much of the last few months, the political pathology known as Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) took an unexpected summer hiatus.
BDS sufferers - liberal Democrats seething over successive presidential election losses and hamstrung by a Republican president confidently wielding wartime authority - failed to transfer their enmity to Sen. John McCain, largely because they couldn't bust his "maverick" brand, but to a larger extent because they assumed Sen. Barack Obama was going to win in a laugher.
That presumption ended when Mr. McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Before Charlie Gibson could even grill the Alaska governor over her "hubris" in accepting Mr. McCain's historic invitation, the raw rage that focused for eight years on the 43rd president of the United States transferred in a flash to a former "Miss Congeniality" and Anchorage suburban mother of five who immediately swung the momentum to Mr. McCain's side.
Palin Derangement Syndrome, a more irrational variant of the Bush contagion, doesn't require sufferers to know anything about the subject of their hatred. Anonymous, unsourced rumors fuel the fire (book banning, speaking in tongues, creationism, etc.). Lovely family photos hacked from a personal e-mail account displayed on commercial Web sites push more buttons. Asterisks from Mrs. Palin's biographical sketch - "moose hunter," "small-town mayor " " wife of champion snow machine racer" - cause excessive sweating and irregular heartbeats. She even fired a guy who Tased a 10-year-old. (Oh wait, she didn't.)
What will happen when they find out she shops at Wal-Mart?
Predictably, the celebrity left - ridiculous enough to form a strong opinion based on unreliable data points and narcissistic enough to broadcast it - has taken to stage, television, newsprint and blogs to express its extreme ire at the Thrilla from Wasilla.
Sandra Bernhard celebrated the 20th anniversary of her career-ending one-woman show, "Without You I'm Nothing," warning that if Mrs. Palin were to go to Manhattan she'd be "gang-raped by [her] big black brothers." The lipstick-on-a-pig lesbian also called Mrs. Palin a "bitch" and an "Uncle Woman."
Joyless niche comedian Margaret Cho blogged, "She is evil," fantasized about having hateful sex with Mrs. Palin and attacked a multitude of her supporters: "If you were truly Christians, you would let gays get married, and send them ng presents from Bed Bath and Beyond!"
Everything-aholic Lindsay Lohan "Mean Girls" ) joined the Sapphic pile-on by issuing a joint diatribe with her putative partner, disc jockey Samantha Ronson: "Is our country so divided that the Republicans' best hope is a narrow-minded, media-obsessed homophobe?"
"Media obsessed?" Those cameras follow Mrs. Palin because she's running for vice president. Not because she's going to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf - like some people we know.
Not since Rosie O'Donnell & Co. manhandled Elizabeth Hasselbeck weekdays on "The View" have liberals been so gleeful to watch a bitter lesbian tear down a confident and beautiful conservative Republican woman. Unresolved high school lust and angst at well-adjusted cheerleaders and popular prom queens should be left for medical professionals, not for midmorning television gabfests.
For many, gay marriage is a key issue.
Yet none of these gilded-ghetto living haters point out that their savior, Mr. Obama, stands against gay marriage, too. Is that change Melissa Etheridge can believe in?
Like President Clinton, who supported regressive anti-gay-rights legislation such as "don't ask, don't tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act, Mr. Obama gets a massive pass from the activist gay left and their stenographers in the mainstream media.
The never-reported political reality is that both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama understand that key components of the Democratic Party - the black and Hispanic blocs - hold views that Brad Pitt would deem "homophobic."
For these minority groups, and for many other religious Democrats, gay marriage is a nonstarter.
Yet liberal celebrities and activist journalists never hurl epithets at these coddled groups no matter how retrograde their ideas. President Bush correctly pegged this phenomenon as "the soft bigotry of lowered expectations." Political correctness, the rigging of politics using different rules for different groups, and buttressed by the media, ensures that Democrats always have the upper hand.
Clumsy on her lesbian training wheels, Miss Lohan and Miss Cho, Miss Bernhard and Miss O'Donnell, are granted immunity for their outrageous rhetoric because they are party girls - Democrats through and through - and creatures of the media. And because of this protection racket, none will be forced to attend sensitivity training for crossing the line last week against Mrs. Palin.
It's also why few will know that the Alaska governor vetoed legislation that would have prevented gays from getting marriagelike benefits. It's also why the media made Republicans Mark Foley and Larry Craig the butts of jokes that would be considered homophobic if hurled at liberal Democrats.
Not since the drubbing of Clarence Thomas during his 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings have liberals in Hollywood and the elite media so openly conspired to deny a minority the right to free thought and free expression of political ideals. Now Sarah Palin is exposing the Democratic Media Complex to a new generation, many of them open-minded women.
Perhaps if he wins in November, the eminently tolerant John McCain will pick an openly gay person to serve high in his administration.
That's when the real Democratic Party derangement will begin.
* Andrew Breitbart is the founder of the news Web site breitbart.com and is co-author of "Hollywood Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon - the Case Against Celebrity."
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 22, 2008 Monday
McCain backers use doubts on Obama to ply Jewish vote
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Partisan groups are investing vast resources to sway Jewish voters in the presidential election as Republicans try to win a bloc that traditionally leans toward Democrats.
Polls show that the Democratic candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, has the support of 60 percent to 65 percent of Jewish voters, still strong despite political attacks, a tough campaign linking him to anti-Israel groups and e-mail rumors questioning his faith.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) is running an ad in Jewish newspapers calling Mr. Obama's position on Iran "naive and dangerous." The ad uses images of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and demonstrators burning an Israeli flag.
"Concerned about Barack Obama? You should be. History has shown that a naive and weak foreign policy has resulted in tragic outcomes for the Jewish people."
Directly under that text is a photo of the candidate in front of a huge crowd with the location identified: "Barack Obama speaking in Germany, 7/24/08."
Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a Florida Democrat, called the ad "disgusting" and said the Republicans were trying to link Mr. Obama to the Holocaust and the Nazi Party.
"It's clearly an effort to sow seeds of doubt," she said. "Voters in the Jewish community are a lot smarter than that."
Matt Brooks, RJC's executive director, called Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz's conclusion "a monumental stretch" and insisted that the group chose the photo of the senator's European trip instead of one from the candidate's hundreds of rallies in the U.S. because it "couldn't find a good picture."
The caption was necessary because "it's important for people to know where we got the image," he said.
"Right now Barack Obama has a real problem
among Jewish voters, which obviously McCain is working hard to try and exploit," said Mr. Brooks.
Jewish voters backed Vice President Al Gore by 80 percent in the 2000 presidential election and Sen. John Kerry by 75 percent in 2004.
Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC), said his group isn't moved by scare tactics.
"The only question is does Obama win the Jewish vote 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 as Democrats tended to do in the 1990s," Mr. Forman said.
The NJDC suggested in a recent fundraising appeal that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has "zero foreign policy experience" and is "totally out of step with public opinion in the Jewish community" on domestic issues such as reproductive rights.
"The Jewish community deserves to know the facts," NJDC writes in a fact sheet for voters that targets Mrs. Palin's conflicting statements on the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere" and says the Republican vice-presidential candidate wants public schools to teach creationism.
Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz contends Democrats "aren't trying to scare Jewish voters," but said Mrs. Palin has "extreme" views on social issues.
She said Jewish voters are passionate about abortion rights, health care and education, issues that tend to favor Democrats.
The Florida Democrat said both Mr. Obama and his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, support Israel. "The only way that the Republicans are going to gain any ground in the Jewish community is if they scare Jewish voters," she said.
The NJDC noted Mrs. Palin's attendance at a "Jews for Jesus" speech at her church and suggested that she supported one-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.
Mr. Buchanan said Mrs. Palin had been a fundraiser for his campaign, but no fundraising is on record and it appears her "support" was limited to wearing a Buchanan button when he visited her town. The McCain campaign insists Mrs. Palin never worked for Mr. Buchanan, whom the Jewish groups portray as anti-Israel.
Mr. Buchanan called Mrs. Palin a "terrific gal" and a "rebel reformer," and said both she and her husband were "brigaders" for him in 1996.
The RJC, meanwhile, has a print ad starring Mr. Buchanan, who has said from his position as an MSNBC analyst: "I think Barack is right; we ought to talk to the Iranians."
That refers to Mr. Obama's response in a July 2007 debate that he would be willing to meet with leaders of rogue nations without preconditions. However, Mr. Obama has since stepped back from that remark, stressing diplomacy but saying such meetings may not be at the presidential level.
Some Jewish blogs have accused Mr. Obama of having former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski on the payroll. Jewish leaders blame Mr. Brzezinski for much of what they see as the pro-Arab tilt in administration policy. Mr. Brzezinski, who worked for President Carter, has endorsed Mr. Obama but is not formally advising the Democrat.
Mr. Forman said Mr. McCain "has his own problems." He noted that former Secretary of State James A. Baker III backs Mr. McCain who has suggested that Mr. Baker - who once used an expletive about Jews - could be a Middle East envoy in a McCain administration.
"If they insist on playing that game they are just as vulnerable," he said.
In May 2006 with the newspaper Ha'aretz, Mr. McCain said he would send "the smartest guy I know" to the Middle East.
"Brent Scowcroft, or Jim Baker, though I know that you in Israel don't like Baker," he said.
Mr. Forman said the tactics haven't changed and have little to do with Mr. Obama.
"In 2004, they were putting out material saying Kerry is endorsed by Arafat," he said, and McCain backer Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is Jewish, was a target in 2000 as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee.
Politico last week uncovered the RJC's push poll against Mr. Obama. After confirming that the respondent was Jewish, the poll taker would ask questions such as, "Would it change your mind if you knew he had met with the leaders of Hamas?" or "if she knew that he had given money to the Palestine Liberation Organization."
Rep. Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican, said Jewish voters have a "comfort level" with Mr. McCain.
Mr. Cantor, who is Jewish, said Mr. Obama's acceptance of support from Mr. Brzezinski "indicates some kind of openness to Jimmy Carter-like foreign policy," adding that those days "really put some fear into people."
On the highly publicized trip abroad, Mr. Obama was well-received while spending several days in Jordan and Israel.
Mr. Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in June that they should not believe "provocative" e-mails that claim he is Muslim. He is Christian.
He added that he was "speaking from my heart and as a true friend of Israel."
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2008
GRAPHIC: Pat Buchanan (above), portrayed as anti-Israel, is being used by both Democrats and Republicans to try to win the Jewish vote in the presidential election. Rep. Eric Cantor (right), Virginia Republican, said Jewish voters are comfortable with Sen. John McCain. [2 Photos by Katie Falkenberg/The Washington Times and Getty Images]
JEWISH MESSAGE: A delegate wears a pin that reads "Barack Obama" in Hebrew at the Democratic National Convention. [Photo by Getty Images]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 22, 2008 Monday
Can an honorable man run a dishonorable campaign?
BYLINE: By Lanny Davis, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; PURPLE NATION; A04
The answer is yes.
And I am sorry to say, the question pertains to Sen. John McCain. I just wrote last week about my disappointment that Mr. McCain had allowed his campaign to lie when it accused Sen. Barack Obama of referring to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin when he made his "lipstick on a pig" remark.
Then in the last week came a campaign TV ad asserting that Mr. Obama's "one accomplishment in the area of education was legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' to kindergartners." The punch line, with a deliberately contorted photo of Mr. Obama, reads:
"Learning about sex before learning to read? Wrong for your family."
Omitted from this ad, no doubt intentionally, were the following facts:
* In March 2003, Mr. Obama, then in the Illinois Senate, voted for an amendment to someone else's bill that was in large part aimed at warning children in kindergarten to sixth grade to recognize and avoid sexual predators. (As someone who is a great admirer of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the father of a 10-year-old and 3-year-old, I can state with certainty that this is a subject that all parents should want their children to be taught as early as possible.)
* The bill was supported by the Illinois Public Health Association, the Illinois State Medical Society, the Cook County Department of Public Health and the Chicago Department of Public Health, among many other state and local health and educational organizations.
* A parental "opt out" provision was included in the legislation.
* It never passed.
Byron York of National Review Online recently wrote that the bill included provisions for children to be taught about other issues such as contraception and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. I respect Mr. York greatly. But that does not mitigate the vicious lie of accusing Mr. Obama of favoring kindergarten-age children "learning about sex before learning to read."
It is ironic that the sliminess of this ad resembles what was done to Mr. McCain in his 2000 presidential campaign before the South Carolina primary by supporters of then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush. The first incident involved Bush supporters linked to the South Carolina campaign doing "push polling" (phone surveys that ask leading questions to plant negative impressions) asking voters if they would be more or less likely to vote for Mr. McCain if they knew that he had fathered an illegitimate black child. In fact, Mr. McCain and his wife, Cindy, had adopted a girl from an orphanage in Bangladesh. The child happens to have skin darker than a Caucasian's.
Bob Jones University professor Richard Hand then reportedly sent out an e-mail to "fellow South Carolinians" stating that Mr. McCain had "chosen to sire children without marriage." The mainstream media picked up the charge and publicized it. CNN interviewed Mr. Hand, confronting him with the fact that Mr. McCain did not have children out of wedlock. Mr. Hand's answer: "Wait a minute, that's a universal negative. Can you prove that there aren't any?"
Subsequently Mr. Bush reportedly repudiated these tactics, claiming that he knew nothing about them at the time and that they were the unauthorized actions of supporters he could not control.
So far Mr. McCain has been silent about the sex education ad.
In fact, the ad is eerily similar to a 1996 political direct-mail piece that, according to a recent article in the New Republic Online, was the work of Steve Schmidt, then a 25-year-old manager of an Indiana Republican congressional candidate and today is Mr. McCain's director of operations.
According to the New Republic article, in the last week of the 1996 campaign, Mr. Schmidt was responsible for sending out a 60,000-piece mailing attacking then-U.S. Rep. Timothy Roemer, an Indiana Democrat who later became a distinguished member of the Sept. 11 commission.
The mailer by Mr. Schmidt, on behalf of his Republican candidate, accused Mr. Roemer of supporting a July 1991 House amendment that would have authorized mailing "sex surveys" that would pry into the sexual lives of Indiana adolescents.
Labeled "Tim Roemer's Sex Survey," the mailer included a picture of the current Playboy magazine cover, another picture of a gay couple embracing and, between those photos, a picture of the Bible.
Omitted from the mailer was the fact that what was actually authorized was a health, not sex, survey; the amendment was passed by the Republican-controlled lower house of the legislature, and the survey had to be approved by the Indiana ethics review board and a peer review board before it could be mailed.
Did Mr. Schmidt have anything to do with the dishonorable sex education anti-Obama ad? I have no idea.
But I believe that the John McCain who ran for president in 2000 already would have taken down the ad, apologized to Mr. Obama and fired whoever was responsible.
Where is that John McCain today?
* Lanny Davis is a prominent Washington lawyer and a political analyst for Fox News. From 1996 to 1998, he served as special counsel to President Clinton. From 2005 to 2006, he served on President Bush's five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 22, 2008 Monday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE POLITICS; A07
Barr and Nader
"The presidential race is within the margin of error in just about every poll, which makes it quite newsworthy that two alternative candidates for president, Bob Barr and Ralph Nader, have managed to stagger onto the vast majority of state ballots for this fall's election," John Fund writes at www.opinionjournal.com.
"The odds are now high that one or another could siphon off enough votes to be the margin of difference in several states," Mr. Fund said.
"That said, few expect Ralph Nader to win anywhere near the 2.7 percent he won in 2000 as the Green Party candidate, throwing supporters of Al Gore into a frenzy over the role he supposedly played in costing them the presidency. Now an independent, Mr. Nader is likely to garner closer to the 0.5 percent he won four years ago. But in a close race, Mr. Nader's presence on at least 44 state ballots increases the possibility of his making a difference.
"Ditto for Bob Barr, the former GOP Georgia congressman now carrying the Libertarian Party banner. He has succeeded in gaining ballot access in more than 45 states, although grass-roots enthusiasm for his candidacy seems to have faded a bit in the wake of individualist Gov. Sarah Palin joining the Republican ticket."
Unreliable source
"A number of journalists are trying hard to fit McCain's 'Advice' ad into the now-established theme of the McCain campaign employing lies and underhanded tactics," Byron York writes at www.nationalreview.com.
"The Obama campaign says the ad is a lie. Writers at Time and the Atlantic have suggested that it has racist overtones, because Franklin Raines is black, and Obama is black, and a photo depicting a generic victim of their alleged financial wrongheadedness is of a white woman," Mr. York said.
"Now, The Washington Post fact checker takes McCain to task for relying on ... The Washington Post Yes, the paper reported in July that Raines had 'taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters,' and in August called Raines a 'member of Mr. Obama's political circle.'
"But hey, the Post says now, that information originally came from the Style section, and it came when a Post reporter was 'chatting' with Raines at a photo shoot. Raines apparently said he had gotten, in the reporter's words, 'a couple' of calls from the Obama campaign. When the reporter asked what about, Raines said, 'Oh, general housing, economy issues.' So the reporter wrote that Raines had 'taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.'
"So now, the Post says McCain 'is clearly exaggerating wildly in attempting to depict Franklin Raines as a close adviser to Obama on " housing and mortgage policy." '
"But the McCain commercial never called Raines a 'close adviser' or a close anything. As far as 'housing and mortgage policy,' given that the Post had written - and has not retracted - that Raines had discussed 'mortgage and housing policy' matters with the Obama campaign, in what sense is that a wild exaggeration?"
Flunking a test
"The meltdown on Wall Street, averted for now by the gigantic taxpayer-funded bailout in the works, revealed frightening weaknesses in our financial readiness. Equally scary was what the crisis revealed about Barack Obama and John McCain," New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin writes.
"Both flunked the sudden stress test the crisis imposed. Neither looked ready to be president," Mr. Goodwin said. "They were bailed out, too. The rescue package took them off the hook of actually having to come up with solutions or even responsible ideas."
"Seeing the next president, whomever we elect, pretend to be bold and certain when neither had a clue was terrifying. Grace under pressure was missing-in-action. Neither Obama nor McCain rose to the challenge history presented to them. Because the crisis hadn't been poll-tested or posted safely on the TelePrompTer, they didn't know what to say except that everything was bad and excuse me while I open a can of outrage.
"The one thing they dare not say was the truth: that ordinary Americans are also guilty of overindulging in the credit binge. That might cost them votes."
Forgotten man
"Have you noticed the little orange cones surrounding a certain ill-fated vice-presidential candidate?" Ruben Navarrette asks in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
"When a presidential nominee chooses a running mate as a gimmick, not to accentuate his strengths but to mask his weaknesses, he is asking for trouble. And when that running mate becomes a laughingstock and a liability, it doesn't just hurt the ticket but also reflects poorly on the person who did the choosing because it shows he bungled a major decision. And since the candidate is not likely to choose again, the best he can do is to keep his running mate under wraps and hope there are no more gaffes," Mr. Navarrette said.
"Of course, the running mate I'm speaking of is Joe Biden.
"With so much attention being showered on Sarah Palin - both good (from the thousands of everyday Americans who have warmed up to the re-energized McCain campaign) and bad (from media elites, condescending liberals, late-night comics, and the writers of 'Saturday Night Live') - it's easy to forget who is the alternative.
"Biden appears intent on making sure voters remember. The career politician is starved for attention. And who can blame him? The poor guy is even having trouble getting journalists to tag along on his campaign plane. According to news reports, only six reporters climbed aboard his campaign plane en route to one recent event. Meanwhile, the press corps traveling with Palin was informed on one flight that the plane had become too heavy. The campaign asked for volunteers to fly commercial."
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes .com.
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 21, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
Concerns raised about polling;
Are pollsters missing voters who have cell phones only?
BYLINE: TYLER WHITLEY; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-1
Could the oh-so-close presidential polls be skewed because they don't account for many young voters who use cell phones only?
"That's the biggest bunch of horse . . . I've ever heard," says pollster Brad Coker, who operates the widely used Mason-Dixon Opinion Research poll.
About six weeks before the presidential election, most polls in Virginia give one candidate or the other an edge of 2 to 4 percentage points.
Some supporters of Sen. Barack Obama, puzzled by why he can't mount a big lead over Sen. John McCain in a difficult environment for Republicans, say the pollsters are missing younger, pro-Obama voters who have cell phones only.
Even some pollsters raise another uncertainty about the plethora of Virginia polls - whether all of the respondents who say they back Obama will vote in November for the nation's first black major-party nominee.
Nearly 250,000 first-time voters have registered in Virginia this year, and 42 percent are under the age of 25. The overall gain has pushed Virginia's voter rolls to 4.8 million people.
Coker said if the sample for a poll includes the number of young voters in proportion to the population, the absence of cell-phone users doesn't matter. He said exit polls taken during the 2004 presidential election showed no difference in voting behavior between landline and cell-phone users.
Polls are weighted to match the demographic composition of the electorate, Coker said.
The Pew Research Center's Scott Keeter, a former pollster at Virginia Commonwealth University, found that cell-only respondents are significantly more likely to support Obama. But he said they also are substantially less likely to be registered to vote and, if registered, less likely to go to the polls.
A Pew survey in June found that Obama held a 48 percent to 40 percent advantage over McCain among cell-phone users and a 46 percent to 41 percent advantage among landline users.
The Gallup organization, one of the oldest and most respected polls, says it does account for cell-phone users. About 15 percent of households now use cell phones only.
Residents of those households tend to be younger, more minorities and more transient, the Gallup organization's Web site says.
Those would be more likely to be Obama supporters.
Since Jan. 2, Gallup has been including cell phone-only households in all of its telephone surveys, the Web site says. The most recent national Gallup poll, taken Friday, shows Obama leading by 5 percentage points.
Coker said the Obama campaign should be more worried about the so-called "Wilder effect" or "Bradley effect."
The phenomenon was named for Virginia's L. Douglas Wilder and California's Tom Bradley, black office holders who saw substantial poll leads disappear on Election Day. This resulted in a theory that some voters are embarrassed to tell pollsters that they will not support a black candidate.
In 1982, Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles, led in the polls but lost California's election for governor.
Two days before Virginia's 1989 election for governor, Wilder led his Republican opponent, J. Marshall Coleman, by 15 percentage points, according to one poll. Wilder won the election, but it was so close there was a recount.
In an interview last week, Wilder, now Richmond's mayor and an Obama backer, said the public polls were wrong in 1989. Wilder said his own campaign's internal polling showed the contest was much closer.
He said he expects only minor slippage for Obama, "de minimus" in Wilder's words.
If there is slippage, it would be among independents, who already are more reluctant than partisans to tell their views, Coker said.
Quentin Kidd, who directs a poll at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, said many pollsters have dismissed the Wilder effect this year, because Obama did well among whites in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
In Virginia's Feb. 12 Democratic primary, Obama won handily with 63.6 percent of the vote. Obama outperformed his tally in all of the public polls leading up to the primary.
But Kidd said he still expects some slippage for Obama in the South on Nov. 4.
"I know most people will say they want to vote for the better candidate, but when they get in the voting booth, they might think otherwise," he said.
Kidd pointed to another polling obstacle. Polling on weekends, particularly on Sundays, tends to miss likely Republican voters, he said.
Two Virginia polls released Wednesday showed dramatically different results, pointing to the importance of how pollsters estimate turnout.
McCain led Obama 53.8 percent to 46.2 percent in a Christopher Newport poll. But in a survey by Public Policy Polling, Obama led McCain 48 percent to 46 percent.
Tom Jensen, communications director for Public Policy Polling, says Christopher Newport underestimated the turnout of blacks and young voters in Virginia, so it undercounted Obama's support.
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: September 25, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 21, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
Republican ticket raises N.C. stakes;
Increased spending comes as Obama makes play for state
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-15
With Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama scheduled to stump today in Charlotte, N.C., the campaign of Republican presidential hopeful John McCain announced plans to ratchet up its efforts in North Carolina.
The McCain campaign said yesterday that it had opened 14 offices in the state and hired 20 paid staffers - a number that said it would likely grow to 20 offices and 25 to 30 staffers.
"This is a state that Senator Obama and his campaign have targeted and put extraordinary resources and finances in the state," Mike DuHaime, the political director for the North Carolina McCain campaign, said in a phone news conference.
President Bush is scheduled to attend a fundraiser in Greensboro on Sept. 30 to raise money for the McCain-Palin ticket.
The event will be held at the Irving Park home of businessman Louis DeJoy and former U.S. ambassador Aldona Wos.
DeJoy, who is state McCain finance chairman, said he expects 350 people to attend the event and predicted it would raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. DeJoy also helped organize a fundraiser the president attended in Raleigh this summer.
The McCain campaign has been playing catch-up in North Carolina, which the Obama campaign targeted early. Obama has 31 offices in the state and well over 200 staffers. Obama also has spent at least $2.5 million on TV advertising in the state, far more than McCain. Obama began his TV ad campaign in early summer, and McCain only began his during the week of the Republican national convention.
Despite that effort, the McCain campaign noted that every statewide public opinion poll has shown McCain with either a large or a modest lead in the state. They also noted that North Carolina last voted Democratic for president in 1976.
DuHaime said the intensity of the Republican effort in the state is growing. He said 39,000 Republicans had requested absentee ballots, compared to 18,000 Democrats.
Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, the GOP candidate for governor, said during McCain had shown his experienced leadership by warning of the breakdown of Fannie Mae, the troubled lender, and had sought legislation to fix it.
Obama is scheduled to campaign in Charlotte today - his third campaign appearance in the state since the May primary. His wife, Michelle Obama, made a campaign swing through Charlotte, Greensboro and Durham last week. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, campaigned in Charlotte last weekend.
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sibelius, an Obama surrogate, campaigned in Asheville, Hickory and Greensboro yesterday.
Neither McCain nor his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has made a public campaign appearance in the state in the general election, although McCain met privately with the Rev. Billy Graham.
DuHaime said he does not know when McCain or Palin will campaign in North Carolina.
LOAD-DATE: September 25, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 21, 2008 Sunday
Concerns raised about polling: Are pollsters missing voters who have cell phones only?
BYLINE: Tyler Whitley, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Sep. 21--Could the oh-so-close presidential polls be skewed because they don't account for many young voters who use cell phones only?
"That's the biggest bunch of horse . . . I've ever heard," says pollster Brad Coker, who operates the widely used Mason-Dixon Opinion Research poll.
About six weeks before the presidential election, most polls in Virginia give one candidate or the other an edge of 2 to 4 percentage points.
Some supporters of Sen. Barack Obama, puzzled by why he can't mount a big lead over Sen. John McCain in a difficult environment for Republicans, say the pollsters are missing younger, pro-Obama voters who have cell phones only.
Even some pollsters raise another uncertainty about the plethora of Virginia polls -- whether all of the respondents who say they back Obama will vote in November for the nation's first black major-party nominee.
Nearly 250,000 first-time voters have registered in Virginia this year, and 42 percent are under the age of 25. The overall gain has pushed Virginia's voter rolls to 4.8 million people.
Coker said if the sample for a poll includes the number of young voters in proportion to the population, the absence of cell-phone users doesn't matter. He said exit polls taken during the 2004 presidential election showed no difference in voting behavior between landline and cell-phone users.
Polls are weighted to match the demographic composition of the electorate, Coker said.
The Pew Research Center's Scott Keeter, a former pollster at Virginia Commonwealth University, found that cell-only respondents are significantly more likely to support Obama. But he said they also are substantially less likely to be registered to vote and, if registered, less likely to go to the polls.
A Pew survey in June found that Obama held a 48 percent to 40 percent advantage over McCain among cell-phone users and a 46 percent to 41 percent advantage among landline users.
The Gallup organization, one of the oldest and most respected polls, says it does account for cell-phone users. About 15 percent of households now use cell phones only.
Residents of those households tend to be younger, more minorities and more transient, the Gallup organization's Web site says.
Those would be more likely to be Obama supporters.
Since Jan. 2, Gallup has been including cell phone-only households in all of its telephone surveys, the Web site says. The most recent national Gallup poll, taken Friday, shows Obama leading by 5 percentage points.
Coker said the Obama campaign should be more worried about the so-called "Wilder effect" or "Bradley effect."
The phenomenon was named for Virginia's L. Douglas Wilder and California's Tom Bradley, black office holders who saw substantial poll leads disappear on Election Day. This resulted in a theory that some voters are embarrassed to tell pollsters that they will not support a black candidate.
In 1982, Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles, led in the polls but lost California's election for governor.
Two days before Virginia's 1989 election for governor, Wilder led his Republican opponent, J. Marshall Coleman, by 15 percentage points, according to one poll. Wilder won the election, but it was so close there was a recount.
In an interview last week, Wilder, now Richmond's mayor and an Obama backer, said the public polls were wrong in 1989. Wilder said his own campaign's internal polling showed the contest was much closer.
He said he expects only minor slippage for Obama, "de minimus" in Wilder's words.
If there is slippage, it would be among independents, who already are more reluctant than partisans to tell their views, Coker said.
Quentin Kidd, who directs a poll at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, said many pollsters have dismissed the Wilder effect this year, because Obama did well among whites in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
In Virginia's Feb. 12 Democratic primary, Obama won handily with 63.6 percent of the vote. Obama outperformed his tally in all of the public polls leading up to the primary.
But Kidd said he still expects some slippage for Obama in the South on Nov. 4.
"I know most people will say they want to vote for the better candidate, but when they get in the voting booth, they might think otherwise," he said.
Kidd pointed to another polling obstacle. Polling on weekends, particularly on Sundays, tends to miss likely Republican voters, he said.
Two Virginia polls released Wednesday showed dramatically different results, pointing to the importance of how pollsters estimate turnout.
McCain led Obama 53.8 percent to 46.2 percent in a Christopher Newport poll. But in a survey by Public Policy Polling, Obama led McCain 48 percent to 46 percent.
Tom Jensen, communications director for Public Policy Polling, says Christopher Newport underestimated the turnout of blacks and young voters in Virginia, so it undercounted Obama's support.
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: September 21, 2008
ACC-NO: 20080921-RV-Concerns-raised-about-polling-0921
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 21, 2008 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Political philosophy 101
Columnist Leonard Pitts' piece on Gov. Romney's 'hypocrisy' ("Romney-speak gets a workout," op-ed, Sept. 6) is an example of why the left and the right cannot communicate. He makes the same mistake that most people make, identifying a political philosophy by the individuals, or by the issue, rather than a defining principle.
Both liberal and conservative philosophies have a unique principle that is always present, and operate in the same manner, and serve the same purpose, as principles found in math or science. That principle is the placement of responsibility. Conservatism puts responsibility on the individual, liberalism on the group. Another factor that must be understood is the three political and social philosophies of the left -- progressive, liberal and socialist -- are identical because each is a group responsibility.
In most cases, a liberal will take offense at being called a socialist, even though the underlying principle is identical. Conservatives are not immune to ignoring conflicting principle in their claim to be a "conservative." An example is John McCain's promise to have a program that would make up the temporary difference in lost wages for employees who lost their jobs under certain conditions and had to take a lower-paying position; it is a 100 percent socialist approach.
The bottom line? Take the personality out, and simply identify where the candidate places responsibility. That, and that alone, will tell you if he or she is taking a conservative or socialist approach.
Bill Ryan
Midlothian
Wrong kind of change
As I ponder The Pilot's letters daily, I am flabbergasted by the Americans who claim that they desire change but want Barack Obama for our next president. He stands for redistribution of wealth, continued high gas prices and the same old song and dance most candidates proclaim.
The Pilot's letter writers continue to bash Sarah Palin. From what I can see and read, Palin is an average American who absolutely wants change, and she has a record of doing it in Alaska. Her support for the commercial fishermen of Alaska gives me pride as someone who works for the little guy without celebrity backing. While many Republican and Democratic candidates talk out both sides of their mouths, the regular people need at least one mom in Washington working for real change in the way the government spends money on frivolous projects.
Susan Hoofnagle Hodges
Chesapeake
The tax cut test
Amidst all the political outrage over lipstick -- and which animal it is politically correct to put it on -- we seem to have forgotten something important. We have forgotten that one of the most blatant misrepresentations put forth during this presidential campaign is that, as president, Barack Obama will raise our taxes. This is completely false.
In reality, four out of five American households will see reduced taxes under the Obama tax plan. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center reports that anyone earning under $120,000 (the vast majority of Americans) will see substantially lower taxes under his proposal, compared with that of John McCain. And even people with incomes up to $600,000 will see their tax burden essentially stay the same under the Obama plan.
If everyone votes purely based on his or her pocketbook, Barack Obama should receive 80 percent of the vote.
Kathleen Durbin
Chesapeake
Reforming the reformer
John McCain and Sarah Palin are running ads touting their maverick credentials. They claim to have taken on Republicans time and time again to push through change. Now, I personally believe that McCain's record these past eight years reveals that he hasn't so much reformed the Republican Party as the Republican Party has reformed him. And I wonder why someone who was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it (but still kept the money) should even raise the issue. But there is one point in the ads on which I agree, and for that I commend the McCain-Palin ticket: They both realize that Republicans are the problem.
William T. Sharpe
Chesapeake
A Hoover for president
There has never been a person nominated for president by a major party with less experience than Barack Obama. During World War II and the Korean War, the question was, "Would you want him in a foxhole with you?" Now the question is, "Do you want him in a Hummer with you?"
Obama does talk smooth and slick, but I had a vacuum cleaner salesman come to my house selling vacuums. He was a good talker, too, but I would not want him for a president, either.
Thomas Grimes
Suffolk
Better than Batgirl
For summertime theater, it doesn't get any better than this. In Sarah Palin, a star is born, and she's even better than Batgirl. In the nick of time, she swoops from the wings to rescue a stage filled with stuffed shirts and pantsuits. The neo-conservative audience goes wild with applause for the former Miss Alaska beauty queen who, in her own words, "isn't going to Washington to win anyone's good opinion."
I can't wait for the rest of the script to unfold. She talks of big guns and pit bulls. She's ready for war both at home and abroad, shouting to an audience of righteous warriors. She'll "declare war" on Big Oil by handing ANWR over to the Halliburton cast. Moose rifle in hand, she'll shoot down our $9.6 trillion debt by shuttering liberal libraries and Planned Parenthood clinics. She'll elevate our foreign entanglements to a Holy Crusade.
As I watch McCain trying to keep pace with his leading lady, I'm reminded of an immortal line from his own war era: "Sometimes we have to destroy a village in order to save a village." I sure hope this play doesn't have too many intermissions. I can't wait to see how it ends in November.
Maybe this will be the grande finale after all, and the neocons have had it right for the last seven years. Maybe we just need to destroy our country in order to save it.
Arlette Claflin
Norfolk
Chelsea vs. Bristol
So, Cal Thomas thinks liberals are being hypocrites for talking about Bristol Palin? Does anyone think Fox News would have shied away from the story had it been Chelsea Clinton? If Chelsea got pregnant at 17, Bill O'Reilly would have led every newscast with how the Clintons were failures as parents, and ask how they could presume to govern the country when they couldn't even govern their daughter. When a party forces "family values" down our throats and continually doesn't live by them, they should be exposed.
Doug McCulley
Virginia Beach
LOAD-DATE: September 21, 2008
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The Washington Post
September 21, 2008 Sunday
Regional Edition
At Ole Miss, a Valedictory to the Old South
SECTION: OUTLOOK; Pg. B03
The first thing you see as you approach the campus of the University of Mississippi, in the town of Oxford, is a 100-year-old statue of a Confederate soldier that stands in front of a grand, columned building know as the Lyceum. This is the university's administration building and the heart of "Ole Miss." It is also the spot where, 46 years ago, a riot broke out when James Meredith became the first black student to enroll in the university.
Now, this coming Friday, Ole Miss will record another historic first, as Sen. Barack Obama comes to campus for an initial debate with Sen. John McCain. As a black man and an Ole Miss grad, I'm overwhelmed by the symbolism of watching the first black man nominated for president by a major political party walk the campus grounds, past the bullet holes you can still see in the Lyceum's walls.
When I was a student at Ole Miss just 12 years after Meredith walked through the Lyceum doors, I often heard the university's integration referred to as simply "the incident." In the early 1970s, the emotional wounds from 1962 were still raw and festering, and the subject was something you discussed only in whispers. But much has changed since then, and a symbol of that change is the Ole Miss civil rights memorial, which stands on the other side of the Lyceum, almost perfectly aligned with the Confederate memorial.
So, in the same way, has a great deal changed in the broader South. To many Americans, this region of the country remains a separate land with its own unique, radically different culture. In the popular view, it's a place still inhabited by various versions of William Faulkner's eccentric Snopes clan, with only the occasional noble Atticus Finch to balance things out. But as someone who has spent nearly 10 years writing about Mississippi and race and cultural identity in the South, I know that the state and its people have changed vastly since I left more than 20 years ago, vowing never to return.
If Faulkner landed in Oxford today, he wouldn't recognize the place or the people he'd encounter. It's a bustling town that no longer feels like a place of unfulfilled hope, as did his fictional version, called Jefferson. Groups of blacks, whites and Hispanics gather together in restaurants on Courthouse Square (which, of course, has its own Confederate memorial).
I recently went back to talk to students at Ole Miss and get a sense of how they view the coming election and how they think their region has changed. I learned that today's generation is willing to look beyond race and political party affiliation in ways that their parents couldn't, to move away from an identity that's shaped closely along racially demarcated lines and to achieve full social integration.
Taylor McGraw is a white freshman who grew up in Oxford. He contemplated going out of state to school but ended up at Ole Miss. He was determined to make a difference in college, and the university seemed to be a place where he could do that. "I know that race does affect the environment at Ole Miss in many ways," he says, "but race and diversity is what makes America unique."
Melissa Cole, a senior from Jackson, takes that one step further. What's happening at Ole Miss, she says, "is just the beginning of change in Mississippi, a new approach to race."
"James Meredith accomplished the racial integration of Ole Miss," agreed Nick Luckett, an African American student from the Delta town of Drew, "but our generation is tackling the next hardest task: social integration."
Ole Miss's efforts to achieve such integration no longer center merely on black and white but also include the population of international and, above all, Latino students. How could it not, given that Mississippi's Latino population has risen 60 percent since 1980, and the overall Latino population of the South has risen 462 percent since 1990?
Social integration also means moving beyond race and looking at issues of class as well. In my days at Ole Miss, race always seemed to be front and center, even when the issue may have been social class instead. But today, says McGraw, "race doesn't explain everything." Mississippi is a poor state, and even though the university was known as the school for the children of the wealthy Delta "planter class," its students have always represented a broad cross-section of the state's socioeconomic makeup. The tradition of the planter class has long since faded away, but economic background remains an issue. And yet, discussions of class in the South can obscure honest talk about race. "It's easier to talk about class, the money you have or don't have, than to talk about race and social segregation," Patrick Woodyard, a white senior from Hot Springs, Ark., told me.
On the other hand, Curtis Wilkie, a journalism professor at Ole Miss, believes that nowadays, "many of the divisions in Mississippi are more partisan than racial." His comment conjured an image from one of my visits to Mississippi last spring: A white man in a muddy pickup passed me somewhat aggressively along U.S. Highway 49. But he had an "Obama for President" sticker in his window, right below the gun rack.
Former Democratic governor Ray Mabus is working actively for Obama in Mississippi, which has probably made it easier for many loyal white Democrats to support a black candidate. Nevertheless, most registered voters are still Republican, and the state is without question conservative, far more likely to fall into McCain's column in November than into Obama's.
If you travel around the state, you'll still encounter some of the racial attitudes of the old South. True social integration has eluded Mississippians aged 50 and older, both black and white, even though they were shaped by the civil rights movement and the fight against segregation. But at the same time, the old racial divisions can no longer be automatically mined for political purposes. The University of Mississippi -- scene of that riot nearly a half-century ago -- is located in a congressional district where a heated special election took place in May. The Republican Party, along with outside groups, tried to defeat Democratic candidate Travis Childers by spending nearly $1 million on television commercials linking him to Obama. Childers won anyway.
In today's South, truth be told, the largest concerns are no longer racial or social but economic, as manufacturing jobs have replaced farming as a means of keeping residents in many Southern states. One of my favorite boyhood vistas, a vast cotton field near the Mississippi town of Canton, is now the site of a Nissan factory. In February 2007, Toyota announced that it would build a plant on a 1,700-acre site near Tupelo, Miss., the birthplace of Elvis Presley. Slowly, farmland is being converted to manufacturing, attracting people from far outside the region and even the country, further transforming the South's cultural and economic landscape.
As the saying goes, it's not your father's South anymore. Today, the region is more sophisticated and open-minded than most people outside it realize. Maybe the public and political strategists will both finally see that when John McCain and Barack Obama arrive on campus, and walk past those bullet-pocked walls.
eubanks@newamerica.net
W. Ralph Eubanks, a fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of "The House at the End of the Road: A Story of Race, Identity, and Memory," to be published in May 2009.
LOAD-DATE: September 21, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; United Press International; James Meredith graduating from Ole Miss.
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The Washington Post
September 21, 2008 Sunday
Suburban Edition
Obama Hopes to Reverse Party Fortunes in Vote-Rich Fla.
BYLINE: Dan Balz; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A08
DATELINE: MIAMI, Sept. 20
Barack Obama was wrapping up his remarks at a Friday night fundraiser here when he turned to the importance of Florida and its 27 electoral votes in his battle for the White House against Republican John McCain.
Obama expressed confidence overall about his prospects of prevailing in November, but then he reminded his audience that there are many ways to win the White House, some easier than others. "I'll tell you, we can win this thing without Florida," he said, "But, boy, it's a lot easier if we win Florida. If we win Florida, it is almost impossible for John McCain to win."
Obama's campaign is prepared to invest a huge amount of money to try to do what Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) failed to do in the Sunshine State. His campaign sent out an e-mail appeal for contributions in the past week, noting provocatively that his budget for Florida alone is $39 million.
But Florida remains one of the most difficult of the major battlegrounds for the senator from Illinois, just as it has for other Democrats this decade -- a costly dry hole. The question is whether Obama, with vast resources and a plan to redraw the shape of the electoral map, can win here. That strategy remains in doubt six weeks before the election.
"It's been a state where he's been close but just trailing," said Dave Beattie, a Florida-based Democratic strategist.
At this point, polls show the race as close to even. McCain strategists say they believe they have a very narrow lead. Senior adviser Steve Schmidt said in a message Saturday, "We are up and will win it but don't take it for granted."
Another senior adviser to the senator from Arizona said: "In an environment, especially over the last two years, when a lot of states have gone in the wrong direction for our party, Florida hasn't as much. It continues to trend in the right direction for us."
In 2000, Gore pulled out of Ohio and poured resources into Florida, only to see his hopes for the presidency die after the 37-day recount battle that was ended by the Supreme Court. George W. Bush's official margin was 537 votes.
Kerry ultimately put more emphasis on Ohio in 2004, but only when it was clear that his best efforts in Florida were likely to fall short. Growing Republican strength and Bush's popularity in the state resulted in an easy victory for the president, 52 to 47 percent.
In 2002, Democrats tried to make a run at then-Gov. Jeb Bush, who was seeking a second term, only to get swamped by massive Republican turnout. Two years ago, when Democrats were gaining substantial ground nationally, Republican Charlie Crist easily won election to succeed Bush as governor by the same 52 to 47 percent as in the 2004 presidential campaign.
The candidates are paying considerable attention to the state. McCain began his week in Florida, and Obama ended his week here. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is in the state this weekend, and Obama will return to the Tampa area next week to prepare for the first presidential debate, scheduled for Friday in Oxford, Miss.
To date, Obama has made a far larger investment in Florida. He spent at least $6 million and as much as $8 million on television ads over the summer while McCain was not advertising at all. McCain's advisers count themselves lucky that, during those months, Obama was not able to improve his standing in any notable way, at least if the polls are accurate.
"That's the ugly story," said a Florida Republican strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to provide a candid assessment of the state. "He spent more than $8 million in Florida and McCain never went up and he lost ground."
Obama also has put an enormous organization in place. He has 50 offices in the state and more than 100,000 active volunteers, according to campaign spokesman Nick Shapiro. The Obama campaign will not provide the number of paid staffers in the state, but a Democratic strategist familiar with the operation said there are at least 300, perhaps as many as 350.
Obama's team believes that the only way to win Florida in November is by producing an electorate that is far more Democratic than that in past races. They are targeting 600,000 African Americans who are registered to vote but who do not regularly turn out on Election Day.
Obama's team also sees considerable potential in a pool of potential voters -- younger Floridians, Hispanics, African Americans and newly arrived suburban voters -- who are not registered. Democrats have gained more new voters this year in Florida than Republicans, although not by the margins they have seen in some other states.
Judging from two Obama rallies in Florida on Saturday -- the first at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach and the second in Jacksonville, the African American community in Florida is enormously enthusiastic about the senator's candidacy. But the campaign's job will be to translate that into a significant outpouring of voters Nov. 4.
There are three keys to the state. First, Obama must produce the kind of huge margins in South Florida that have been the key to Democratic success in the past. Second, he must avoid a poorer-than-normal showing for Democrats in conservative northern Florida. Finally, he must win the battle for voters across the Interstate 4 corridor in central Florida.
"If he wins the Tampa market, he probably wins the state," Beattie said.
But a Democratic strategist said he remained worried because Republicans were beginning to come home to McCain. "Obama should be doing better on the I-4 than he currently is in the public polling. He's not doing worse among Bubba than we thought," the strategist said, referring to white, working-class Southerners. "The problem is he should be doing better with change voters on the I-4."
There are other obstacles. Whether he can ultimately win white voters in adequate numbers in northern Florida is still in question. Along Florida's west coast, he will try to woo retirees from states such as Michigan and Ohio, the same kind of voters who rejected him in overwhelming numbers in those states in the primaries against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). In South Florida, he will have to overcome some resistance in the Jewish community.
At a pair of fundraisers in Miami on Friday, Obama made a special plea to his supporters to help turn out their communities in what he called "the wonderful tapestry that is South Florida."
He urged Cuban Americans to go into Little Havana and tell voters there: "I know that you may have voted Republican in the past, but this time we need a change, and Barack Obama is my guy. He believes in liberty for the Cuban people. He wants to try to pursue it in new ways in the 21st century."
He asked Jewish voters to go into their communities, as well. "You've got to say, 'Listen, let me explain to you: This guy has always been a friend of Israel. Don't believe those nasty e-mails [saying the opposite]. He will never sacrifice Israel's security.' "
The battle over the next six weeks will pit Obama's ground game against a McCain campaign that will finally be airing television commercials and tapping into the strength of a state Republican Party and Republican National Committee that have proved so effective in recent Florida votes.
Republicans see themselves holding the state in November, but not without a fight.
LOAD-DATE: September 21, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 20, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
'The risk of not acting would be far higher'
From wire reports
WASHINGTON
Struggling to stave off financial catastrophe, the Bush administration on Friday laid out a bailout plan involving a takeover of a half-trillion dollars or more in worthless mortgages and other bad debt held by tottering institutions.
Relieved investors sent stocks soaring on Wall Street and around the globe. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 368 points after surging 410 points the day before on rumors the federal action was afoot.
President Bush acknowledged risks to taxpayers in what would be the most sweeping government intervention to rescue failing financial institutions since the Great Depression.
"The risk of not acting would be far higher," he said.
The administration is asking Congress for far-reaching new powers to take over troubled mortgages from banks and other companies, including purchasing sour mortgage-backed securities. Administration officials and congressional leaders are to work out details over the weekend.
Congressional officials said they expected a request for legal authority to buy up the bad loans, at a cost in excess of $500 billion to the government. Democrats were discussing whether to try to attach middle-class assistance to the legislation, despite a request from Bush to avoid adding items that could delay action. An expansion of jobless benefits was one possibility.
In other major steps, the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve moved to give money-market mutual funds the same kind of federal protection, at least temporarily, that now applies to savings and checking accounts and certificates of deposit at banks. And the Securities and Exchange Commission acted to block short-selling in financial securities, a trading method that bets the value of stocks will go down and has been blamed for accelerating the plunge in stock prices of banks and other financial institutions.
"This is a pivotal moment for America's economy," Bush said. "In our nation's history, there have been moments that require us to come together across party lines to address major challenges. This is such a moment."
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, told lawmakers that the financial system had been perilously close to collapse.
According to notes taken by one participant in a call to House members, Paulson said that the failure to pass a broad rescue plan would lead to nothing short of disaster. Bernanke said that Wall Street had plunged into a full-scale panic, and he warned lawmakers that their constituents were in danger of losing money on holdings in ultra-conservative money-market funds.
Congressional leaders of both parties welcomed the administration's moves after a series of ad hoc rescues, but the political obstacles to resolving the financial crisis remained high. The first is simply a matter of time: Congress is set to adjourn at the end of next week, and it is being asked to approve a plan involving more money than any single program in history.
As of Friday evening, Paulson had yet to deliver a formal plan to Congress. House and Senate leaders pledged to work through the weekend, but they insisted that Paulson bring them a detailed plan.
An even bigger obstacle was the goal of the plan. Bush and Paulson made it clear that their primary, and perhaps only, goal was to stabilize the financial markets by removing hundreds of billions of dollars in "illiquid assets" from the balance sheets of banks and financial institutions.
"Confidence in our financial system and its institutions is essential to the smooth operation of our economy, and recently that confidence has been shaken," Bush said. "We must address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets - the mortgage assets that have lost value during the housing decline and are now restricting the flow of credit."
But Democratic lawmakers insisted that any plan would also have to provide relief to millions of families that were poised to lose their homes to foreclosure.
The federal government already has pledged more than $600 billion in the past year to bail out, or help bail out, some of the biggest names in American finance. That includes the rescue of investment bank Bear Stearns in March; the takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac earlier this month; and the takeover of the world's largest insurance company, American International Group, this week.
But the contagion continued to spread, bringing political consensus that drastic and comprehensive federal action was needed.
Paulson said the new troubled-asset relief program that he wants Congress to enact must be large enough to have the necessary impact while protecting taxpayers as much as possible.
"I am convinced that this bold approach will cost American families far less than the alternative - a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund economic expansion," Paulson said. "The financial security of all Americans ... depends on our ability to restore our financial institutions to a sound footing."
Bush said simply, "We must act now."
This story was compiled from reports by The Associated Press and The New York Times.
what's next
Administration officials and congressional leaders are to work out details over the weekend about giving far-reaching new powers to the government to take over troubled mortgages from banks and other companies. what happened Friday Stocks soared on Wall Street and worldwide Friday after the Bush administration announced a drastic bailout plan to take over a half-trillion dollars or more in worthless mortgages and other bad debt. Protecting mutual funds The Treasury Department said it will tap into a $50 billion fund created during the Depression and temporarily provide guarantees for mutual funds. presidential candidates react
Barack Obama and John McCain call both their parties to work together to solve the crisis.
Front section, Page 10
coming tomorrow
How the upheaval on Wall Street is likely to affect Hampton Roads individuals and businesses. dow jones +368.75 11,388.44 Short-selling ban The Securities and Exchange Commission temporarily banned short-selling, a time-honored method for profiting when a stock drops, in the shares of 799 financial companies. See stories in Business
LOAD-DATE: September 20, 2008
GRAPHIC: J. Scott Applewhite | The Associated Press Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the financial system had been close to collapsing. Lawmakers, who will work through the weekend, have insisted Paulson give them a detailed bailout plan.
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The Washington Post
September 20, 2008 Saturday
Regional Edition
Judging a Man by the Company He Keeps
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
The Ad: John McCain admits he doesn't understand the economy. So who advises him? Carly Fiorina, the fired CEO who got a $42 million golden parachute. Phil Gramm, the ex-senator who pushed through deregulation and called Americans hurt by this economy "whiners." Then there's George Bush, whose disastrous policies McCain wants to continue. They think the economy is fundamentally strong. We know they're fundamentally wrong.
Analysis: The key facts in this Barack Obama counterattack ad are accurate.
Fiorina, who has been one of McCain's closest and most visible advisers, was forced to resign as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard over its sinking fortunes, and she received a severance package estimated at $42 million (popularly, if somewhat pejoratively, called a "golden parachute"). Gramm was another close adviser until he told the Washington Times that America had become "a nation of whiners" complaining about a "mental recession," after which he relinquished his formal campaign role. Gramm was a Senate champion of deregulation, and he sponsored a 1999 law, supported by McCain, that loosened barriers between banks and insurance companies. That measure, some analysts say, contributed to the current Wall Street meltdown.
McCain has been a frequent supporter of President Bush, but whether Bush's economic policies have been "disastrous" is, of course, a matter of debate. The ad slightly distorts McCain's comment on Monday that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" -- which, while politically tone-deaf, can be seen as saying that the financial underpinnings are solid despite the current troubles. That is not the same as saying the overall economy is strong.
In a duel over advisers, the Obama ad is stronger in aiming at two McCain confidants than the Arizona senator's spot attempting to tie the Democrat to former Fannie Mae chairman Franklin D. Raines. But voters may be more interested in the words and policies of the candidates themselves than in those of the people who surround them.
Video of this ad can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
LOAD-DATE: September 20, 2008
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September 20, 2008 Saturday
McCain tries anti-Chavez ad to sour Hispanics on Obama
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain released a commercial Friday linking Sen. Barack Obama to anti-American rants by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in the hope that Hispanic voters' disdain for the divisive Latin American leader will pay off at the polls.
In the ad - replete with bleeps to cover up Mr. Chavez's repeated expletives in condemning Americans - the McCain campaign charges that Mr. Obama would meet unconditionally with Mr. Chavez and other anti-American foreign leaders. "Do you believe we should talk with Chavez?" the announcer asks.
The McCain campaign said Hispanic voters are particularly open to the message because many of them are immigrants who came to the U.S. seeking to escape the sort of political tactics Mr. Chavez employs.
"They come to America for freedom, and yet Senator Obama seems overly willing to deal with a tin-pot dictator," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said.
It marks the latest barb in a two-week exchange between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama as the battle for Hispanic voters heats up. It follows particularly brutal ads in which each side has accused the other of walking away from an immigration accord.
Hispanic advocates and political operatives say Mr. McCain must win at least 40 percent of the Hispanic vote - the same share President Bush won in 2004 - to defeat Mr. Obama on Nov. 4.
For now, most polls show Mr. McCain falling short of that goal and also falling behind Mr. Bush's Hispanic voter performance in Florida and in the Southwest.
Seeking to press that advantage, Mr. Obama has vowed to team up with the Democratic National Committee for a $20 million campaign aimed at turning out Hispanic voters this year.
Federico de Jesus, an Obama campaign spokesman, called the new Chavez ad the "latest distortion" from Mr. McCain, and said it's actually President Bush's policy that has boosted the Venezuelan leader.
"We cannot afford more of the same economic policies that have driven us into a ditch, and we cannot afford more of the same foreign policy that has strengthened Chavez and set back U.S. leadership in Latin America while doing nothing to break our dependence on foreign oil," he said.
The McCain ad, which has both a Spanish and an English-subtitled version, will run in Florida - a state where Republicans say anti-Chavez sentiment runs high.
Mr. McCain has not missed opportunities to stoke the fire. Last week, when Venezuela expelled the U.S. ambassador, Mr. McCain used the occasion to slam Mr. Obama's opposition to off-shore drilling as leaving the U.S. dependent on Venezuelan oil, and said Mr. Obama's foreign policy was too cozy with Mr. Chavez.
"The United States, and our partners throughout Latin America, cannot afford Senator Obama's brand of unilateralism that rewards Hugo Chavez and his dangerous despotism," the Arizona senator said.
The link between Mr. Obama and Mr. Chavez stems from several appearances Mr. Obama made last year in which he said he would be willing to meet unconditionally with anti-American leaders, specifically including Mr. Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mr. Obama, though, has also had harsh words for Mr. Chavez, calling him a "demagogue," and his campaign stresses Mr. Obama only expressed a willingness, not a promise, to meet with him. Mr. Obama also says his approach would be similar to that of former presidents who met with leaders of communist nations during the Cold War.
For months, Republicans have said they see an opening by using Mr. Chavez. The strategy is based in part on the success Mexican President Felipe Calderon had in winning his country's 2006 election by demonizing Mr. Chavez.
Mr. Calderon, who had initially trailed in polls, began deploying ads tying his chief opponent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to Mr. Chavez, and analysts said the attacks flipped the polls around, giving Mr. Calderon a slim victory.
But Luis Fraga, a professor at the University of Washington and one of the principal investigators in the Latino National Survey, a compendium of data about Hispanic voters, said the Chavez attack ad won't have much effect here.
"Separate from immigration-related issues, there is no consistent evidence that issues in Latin America have a great impact on the political preferences of Latino voters in the United States," he said.
He said Hispanic voters in the 2006 study ranked issues facing the country about the same way as other voters did. But asked which issues were most important to Latino voters in particular, a plurality chose immigration.
The issue is so volatile it's been the subject of harsh ads in the Spanish-language market.
Despite Mr. McCain's clear leadership on, and Mr. Obama's support for, a bill legalizing illegal immigrants, each man has blasted the other for not doing enough.
Mr. McCain and the Republican National Committee have accused Mr. Obama of supporting amendments that scuttled the immigration agreement.
Mr. Obama replied with an ad linking Mr. McCain to talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, who fought the senator's immigration proposal.
"They made us feel marginalized in a country we love so much," the ad says, pointing to "insults" it says were tossed at Hispanics.
Mr. McCain has said he now supports certifying the borders are secure before going ahead with another attempt at legalization. Mr. Obama says security and legalization must be part of the same package.
Mr. Obama has seen prominent Hispanic supporters of Mr. Obama's nomination rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, announce support for Mr. McCain. One of them, Luchy Secaira, a former superdelegate for Mrs. Clinton, said she doubts Mr. Obama's strength among Hispanic voters.
"I was on the ground, and I think all this support is just smoke and mirrors. I don't think he enjoys overwhelming support in the Hispanic community, as does John McCain," she told reporters in endorsing the Republican yesterday on a conference call arranged by the McCain campaign.
LOAD-DATE: September 21, 2008
GRAPHIC: Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, campaigning Friday in Minnesota, authorized a TV ad that attempts to link opponent Sen. Barack Obama with anti-American Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. [Photograph by Associated Press]
Leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, posing in front of a portrait of liberation fighter Simon Bolivar, is the latest weapon being used by the McCain campaign in an attempt to lure Hispanic voters from his Democratic opponent. [Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]The McCain campaign has released a TV ad in Florida attempting to link Sen. Barack Obama with anti-American firebrand Hugo Chavez, leftist president of Venezuela, as both candidates court Hispanic voters. [Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 19, 2008 Friday
Final Edition
Palin's spouse refuses to testify in probe;
Todd Palin was among 13 people subpoenaed in firing of Alaskan official
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-9
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's husband has refused to testify in the investigation into whether his wife abused her power, and a key lawmaker said yesterday the probe is not likely to be completed before Election Day.
Todd Palin was among 13 people subpoenaed by the Alaska Legislature. McCain-Palin presidential campaign spokesman Ed O'Callaghan said yesterday that Todd Palin would not appear, because he no longer believes the Legislature's investigation is legitimate.
Sarah Palin initially welcomed the investigation of accusations that she dismissed the state's public safety commissioner because he refused to fire her former brother-in-law, a state trooper. But she increasingly has opposed it since Republican presidential nominee John McCain chose her as his running mate.
Earlier this week, Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg said the governor, who was not subpoenaed, declined to participate in the investigation and said Palin administration employees who have been subpoenaed would not appear.
State Sen. Bill Wielechowski, a Democrat, said the McCain campaign is doing all it can to prevent the Legislature from completing a report.
Wielechowski, a member of the panel that summoned the witnesses, told The Associated Press that the witnesses can avoid testifying for months without penalty and that court action to force them to appear sooner is unlikely.
Palin fired Walt Monegan in July. It later emerged that Palin, her husband, Todd, and several high-level staffers had contacted Monegan about state trooper Mike Wooten. Palin maintains she fired Monegan over budget disagreements and not because he wouldn't dismiss her former brother-in-law.
Wooten had gone through a nasty divorce from Palin's sister before Palin became governor. While Monegan says no one from the administration ever told him directly to fire Wooten, he says their repeated contacts made it clear they wanted Wooten gone.
McCain and Palin decided to go the extra 5 miles yesterday to see flood damage in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
McCain and Palin had planned to stick to an airport rally on their way to Green Bay, Wis., where McCain had an interview scheduled with CBS-TV's "60 Minutes." But local leaders grew upset that they had no plans to see the flood-damaged city.
So the GOP duo went downtown, to see an estimated $1.3 billion in destruction lingering from June floods that swamped hundreds of city blocks and damaged thousands of homes and businesses. Many in the city say federal help has been slow; McCain and Palin agreed.
"The role of government in America, I say as a fiscal conservative, is to help Americans in a time of disaster," McCain said. "They have experienced a disaster, and our assistance is overdue."
Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, campaigning in Ohio, said yesterday that paying higher taxes would be patriotic for wealthier Americans.
In an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Biden said wealthier taxpayers would pay more under the proposals of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Under that plan, people earning more than $250,000 would pay more in taxes while those earning less - the vast majority of taxpayers - would receive a tax cut, he said.
In a new TV ad that repeats widely debunked claims about the Democratic tax plan, the McCain campaign charges that Obama would enlarge the federal government amid an economic crisis.
The first political event to feature Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sarah Palin now will have neither. Organizers of a rally next week in New York City against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced yesterday that no politicians will appear.
The collection of American Jewish groups putting together the rally angered Clinton aides by not telling them they also planned to have Palin.
Clinton backed out Tuesday, as soon as she learned of the pairing.
The National Coalition to Stop Iran Now said yesterday they would have no "American political personalities" at the rally to keep the focus on Iranian threats.
The Palin camp criticized Clinton for backing out, saying all parties should rally together in opposition to the threat posed by a nuclear Iran.
LOAD-DATE: September 21, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 19, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Easy money
Now that the Fed has bailed out yet another corporation, the American people are being fed more lies from the Democrats. First it was the Democratic Congress that pushed hard for financial institutions to take on subprime loans. Remember, they said it was only fair that all Americans own a home, regardless of ability to pay.
Money was so cheap that these financial institutions lined up to give it away. So now all of these institutions are saddled with mortgage-backed securities that are worthless. No credit checks, no income or asset verification paved the road we're on today.
For House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to say the Democrats had no part in this is truly disingenuous. She's singing the same old tune that failed Bush policies caused this. Before the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006, our economy was doing far better than today.
We don't need more government regulation. Financial institutions were deregulated under Bill Clinton. The media need to be more honest with the American people, too, like bringing up that little tidbit.
Nick Renesis
Virginia Beach
Wrong road
After the events of this past Monday (some are calling it Black Monday) when the Dow dropped more than 500 points and ended the day in the worst decline since 9/11, I am more committed than ever to voting for Barack Obama in November.
John McCain is divorced from the economic reality of hard-working Americans. By repeating that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong," McCain is driving home just how far removed from middle-class voters he really is.
Former Sen. Phil Gramm, who pushed legislation that allowed the investment and mortgage crises to spiral out of control, has been McCain's right-hand man on economic policies throughout his campaign. He made headlines by calling America "a nation of whiners," while claiming that the current crisis is simply "a mental recession."
Obama's solutions will help rebuild the middle class. He'll give 95 percent of working Americans a tax cut of up to $1,000.
Selina Foreman
Norfolk
Voice for taxpayers
If Virginia Beach voters knew that they had a choice in the mayor's race for a candidate who understands their tax burdens and who could cut unchecked spending by the local government, I think that candidate would win overwhelmingly. Unfortunately, candidates like John Moss don't get enough campaign donations to advertise. I'll send my check to Moss, even though it won't be much. Many people will not even recognize his name and, sadly, he will probably receive a small percentage of the vote. But maybe, just this once, it won't be politics as usual and we'll get someone we deserve.
Roger Dadiomoff
Virginia Beach
Pro-planning mayor
Re "Fiction on planning," letter, Sept. 17:
The writer's reaction to the Sept. 7 news story about planning for development in Virginia Beach was refreshingly factual. One reason the current mayor of Virginia Beach, Meyera Oberndorf, has been repeatedly returned to office is that she has a strong voting record of supporting the comprehensive plan. Unfortunately, having only one vote to cast, the mayor has frequently been in the minority. For this reason, checking the voting record, if there is one, of anyone running for mayor or City Council is a good idea.
Georgette Constant
Norfolk
No need for hotel
Re "Lucas to revive hotel plans," Hampton Roads, Sept. 15:
If Sen. Lucas thinks another hotel and conference center is such a great idea for Portsmouth, then why can't she find a venture capitalist willing to take the risk? The city of Portsmouth is already in the hotel business and losing money every year, with vacant rooms at The Renaissance Hotel.
The Empowerment Zone financing she seeks is just another name for wasteful pork. And it would only be a matter of time before Lucas came back to Portsmouth City Council, hat in hand, looking for another bailout. This is nothing more than a smokescreen for ego and entitlement.
Donna C. Blonts
Portsmouth
A tailor's legacy
On Aug. 27, Ghent lost one of its favorite businessmen, Frank Paolocci, who died from heart complications. I met Frank when he came to Norfolk in 1966, having been invited by Shulman & Co. to emigrate from Italy for a job. After Shulman's, Frank and his wife, Mina, opened their own business, the Ghent Seamstress & Tailor Shop on Colley Avenue.
Frank was undoubtedly the finest men's tailor I have ever known. Not only was he a master craftsman, but he was a man of sterling character. He was honest, industrious and fiercely patriotic, having become a citizen. He was always smiling, and he and his wife deemed it their duty to satisfy and serve their customers. You left their shop with a sense of pride knowing that you would be completely satisfied with their fine work.
Berry D. Willis Jr.
Norfolk
Exceptional Navy command
Last Friday, the local press missed the change of command of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, from Rear Adm. Michael Tillotson to Rear Adm. Carol M. Pottenger, both impressive officers.
Pottenger took over a command of more than 30,000 highly trained Americans. The commands encompass 11 warfare specialties, including explosive ordnance disposal, riverine forces, naval construction, diving operations and expeditionary forces that are deployed throughout the world.
The remarks by Adm. Jonathan Greenert, Commander U.S. Fleet Forces Command, told the story of the command's accomplishments as it defeated terrorism from Iraq to the Horn of Africa.
These heroic Americans put boots on the ground while their families, our neighbors, waited for their heroes to return. Forty-four have sacrificed their lives.
As one of the active-duty and retired admirals in attendance, I was honored to be in the presence of the troops.
Rear Adm. Fred Metz, retired
Virginia Beach
LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2008
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The Washington Post
September 19, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
As Michigan Goes . . .;
__
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A19
DATELINE: GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.
If he carries Michigan, many routes to victory are open for Barack Obama. Without Michigan, he's got a big problem.
This state, which was living with economic catastrophe long before this week's Wall Street meltdown, could be to this election what Ohio was in 2004 and Florida was in 2000.
And voters here are so angry -- about unemployment at 9 percent and some of the country's highest rates of foreclosures and outbound one-way U-Haul rentals -- that no one is certain where they will lash out.
"What's challenging about Michigan is that they've suffered this economy in its worst form," said Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster who has studied the state for years. "They blame the Democratic governor and the Democratic Party, and the Republican president and the Republican Party, and an elite they believe sold out their state."
It's no wonder, then, that John McCain and Sarah Palin held their first joint town hall meeting in this solidly Republican city Wednesday, or that McCain played his newly discovered populist tune during a visit earlier in the day at a General Motors plant. "We are not going to leave the workers here in Michigan hung out to dry," McCain said, "while we give billions in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street."
It's also no wonder that Detroit, Grand Rapids and Flint were three of the top five media markets nationally for political advertisements in the week after the party conventions, according to the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project. Grand Rapids alone saw 1,197 of them.
Michigan matters hugely because it will be exceedingly difficult for Obama to assemble an electoral college majority unless he holds virtually every state carried by John Kerry four years ago. This is the most vulnerable of the big Kerry states. "Michigan," says Greenberg, "is the key to the whole map."
Most polls have given Obama a small lead, but he has special problems here. Because of the Democrats' wrangle over delegate rules, Obama did not campaign in the state's primary. "There's a lot of catch-up going on," says Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat.
Republicans are also trying to link Obama to Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, whose popularity has suffered with the economy. Saul Anuzis, chairman of the state Republican Party, describes Granholm as "an articulate, attractive woman who happens to be a Harvard graduate," generous words that he uses as a stiletto against Granholm's fellow Harvard Law graduate Obama.
"If you like what Jennifer Granholm has done in Michigan, you'll love what Barack Obama will do for America," says Anuzis, reciting the Republicans' battle cry. But Democrats such as Stabenow scoff at the idea that Republicans will be able to use Granholm to dodge local ire over President Bush's policies.
The choice of Palin has been helpful to McCain in western Michigan, with its large constituency of conservative Christians. On Wednesday, the faithful here greeted her with loud cries of "Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!" And noting the Palin family's penchant for snowmobiling, Anuzis reports that Michigan has the largest number of registered snowmobiles in the country -- more than 300,000, according to the American Council of Snowmobile Associations.
Obama is counting on a huge African American vote in Detroit, but the city's politics are in turmoil following Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's departure from office yesterday as part of a plea agreement related to perjury charges. Anuzis said the controversy has left the Detroit Democratic organization "splintered and divided." And a pro-McCain group has run an ad, clearly aimed at white suburban voters, linking Obama and Kilpatrick.
Anuzis is one of the few Republican politicians who say openly that Obama's race is an inescapable factor in the election. "Racism, like sexism, is not something people admit to," he says. He notes that McCain voters typically offer diverse reasons for supporting their candidate over Obama. His conclusion: "When they have five or six reasons, it's usually for another reason they don't want to mention."
"It is one of the most taboo subjects people can talk about," Anuzis adds. "Every time I bring it up, people cringe."
But by forcing Obama to sharpen his economic appeal, the bad news from Wall Street may prove to be a particularly potent tonic for his chances here. Former Democratic representative David Bonior believes that a very bad economy will brush aside "the Reagan Democrat social issues that are normally important in our state." So does Stabenow.
"For us to win Michigan, people have to understand that Barack Obama is going to put people back to work," she says. "That's going to trump every other division in the state."
postchat@aol.com
LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2008
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The Washington Post
September 19, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
Obama, McCain Trade Shots Over Responses to Financial Meltdown
BYLINE: Robert Barnes and Michael D. Shear; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
DATELINE: GREEN BAY, Wis., Sept. 18
Republican presidential nominee John McCain proposed the creation of a new financial institution to head off future Wall Street meltdowns as he and his Democratic rival both groped for a more robust response to the nation's deepening economic crisis.
At a town hall rally here on Thursday, McCain accused Sen. Barack Obama of "cheerleading" the gloomy financial news, urged the ouster of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and said that Obama's running mate believes raising taxes is "patriotic."
Obama offered a blistering response during an appearance in Española, N.M., accusing the Republican of unleashing "an angry tirade against all the insiders and lobbyists who've supported him for 26 years -- the same folks who run his campaign."
The Democrat mocked McCain's call for the firing of the SEC commissioner, saying that such a move would not erase a "lifelong record" of support for the "policies and people who helped bring on this disaster."
The tough talk was the latest iteration of rapidly evolving responses to the financial crisis that has dominated headlines and the campaign since Monday. McCain said he would offer more details Friday about "what I will do as president to fix this crisis" even as he excoriated Obama.
Late Thursday, his campaign launched a TV ad noting that Obama had received advice from Franklin D. Raines, the former head of failed mortgage giant Fannie Mae, calling it "shocking" and saying: "Bad advice. Bad instincts. Not ready to lead."
"While the leaders of Fannie and Freddie were lining the pockets of his campaign, they were sowing the seeds of the financial crisis we see today, and they also enriched themselves with millions of dollars in payments," McCain said of Obama while campaigning in Iowa. "That's not change. That's what's broken in Washington, my friends."
The McCain campaign cited a July Washington Post profile of Raines as the source for his connection to Obama. In that profile, it was reported that he had "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters." In a statement issued by the Obama campaign late Thursday, Raines strongly denied having provided counsel to Obama, saying: "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters."
McCain proposed creating a mortgage and financial institutions trust to detect and prevent spectacular failures of banks, investment brokerages and insurance companies. He also plans to propose new consumer protections, the elimination of "golden parachutes" for chief executives, and more regulation and monitoring of financial institutions, aides said.
But his campaign declined to be specific about how his proposals would work, saying they did not want to preempt McCain's more detailed discussion of those issues in a speech on Friday.
"The MFI will enhance investor and market confidence, benefit sound financial institutions, assist troubled institutions and protect our financial system, while minimizing taxpayer exposure," McCain said.
McCain also lashed out at Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden Jr. after the senator from Delaware defended Obama's plan to raise taxes for the wealthy by saying: "It's time to be patriotic . . . time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."
Campaigning in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, McCain said: "Raising taxes in a tough economy isn't patriotic. It's not a badge of honor. It's just plain dumb."
Obama reacted to McCain's tough rhetoric in kind, addressing the crowd in New Mexico with a passion he has rarely displayed on the stump.
"In the next 47 days, you can fire the whole trickle-down, on-your-own, look-the-other-way crowd in Washington who has led us down this disastrous path," he thundered. "Don't just get rid of one guy. Get rid of this administration. Get rid of this philosophy. Get rid of the do-nothing approach to our economic problem and put somebody in there who's going to fight for you."
Obama promised more information about his plan to create a Homeowner and Financial Support Act, which he said would emerge after a meeting with his top economic advisers Friday. He said it would provide capital and liquidity to financial institutions and markets and help families restructure mortgages.
Like McCain, he offered few details about his proposal, instead repeating his vows to cut taxes for 95 percent of working families, push through a $50 billion economic stimulus plan, and provide a tax credit to struggling families that would reduce their mortgage interest rates.
"Let's be clear: What we've seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed," Obama said.
Democrats seized on McCain's suggestion that President Bush fire SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, noting that the head of an independent agency is legally shielded from being fired. "After 26 years in Washington, you would think John McCain would understand how things work," said Damien LaVera, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.
McCain advisers amended his statement, saying that he was suggesting that he would demand the resignation of the SEC chairman if he were president. "The president of the United States has the power to remove the chairmanship, and always reserves the right to request the resignation of an appointee and to maintain the customary expectation that it will be delivered," spokesman Brian Rogers said.
Meanwhile in Washington, Cox issued a statement of his own, saying: "The best response to political jabs like this is simply to put your head down and not lose a step doing the best job you can possibly do on behalf of those you serve."
Shear reported from Washington.
LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Stephan Savoia -- Associated Press; In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Sen. John McCain, with Sarah Palin, criticized a comment the Democratic vice presidential nominee made about taxes.
IMAGE; By Chris Carlson -- Associated Press; At a rally in Española, N.M., Sen. Barack Obama responded to his rival's criticism with a passion he has rarely displayed while campaigning.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 19, 2008 Friday
Suburban Edition
Trying to Get Christian Music Fans to Tune To the Left
BYLINE: Michelle Boorstein; Washington Post Staff Writer
Fans of Christian music, listeners to Christian radio, watchers of Christian TV -- you're very attractive, did you know that?
After years of living in a quiet, monogamous relationship with the Republican Party, you are being courted by the Democrats. These leftie operatives say it's not enough to be the de facto political party of Hollywood, with its nudity and violence. Now Barack Obama's supporters have a new frontier in their sights: Nashville.
In addition to being the home of country music, Nashville has long been the literal and metaphoric capital of the gospel and contemporary Christian music industries, as well as a hot spot for Christian radio and TV. This, industry folks say, is a land populated by GOP-voting listeners.
Sure, anyone who's been paying attention knows the Democrats have ramped up their outreach to religious voters in the past few years, but a concerted effort to reach into Christian Medialand has intensified recently and will continue beyond the November election.
We're talking rallies against global warming and capital punishment, at Christian music concerts. Obama ads on Christian radio. Consumers of gospel music getting bombarded with campaign literature from Democratic candidates.
That means the good people of Ohio will be peacefully listening to a radio preaching out of the Book of Revelation when suddenly -- "Jesus said, inasmuch as you did unto the least of these, you have done it to me" . . . calming instrumental music in the background . . . "As a Christian," says pro-life Democrat and former Ohio congressman Tony Hall, "Barack believes God calls us to care for those in need . . . "
That's a new radio ad scheduled to air on Christian radio in Ohio next week.
"We have people calling every Christian radio station; we want to know about their newsroom, what news services they use, how can we communicate with them. Oftentimes, they'll say we are the first Democrats to ever call," drawls Burns Strider, a Mississippi native who led faith outreach for Hillary Clinton. Strider launched a partnership this summer with Rick Hendrix, a major Christian music promoter, to connect Christian music fans with Democratic candidates. At any given time, listeners to Christian talk and music radio make up about 2.7 percent of all listeners, according to Arbitron.
While consumers of Christian entertainment are predominantly conservative, those in the business long have been more politically diverse than listeners realize.
"I think it would be shocking to a lot of people if you interviewed Christian artists, the split would be pretty even" between Republicans and Democrats, says Grant Hubbard, vice president of promotion for EMI Christian Music Group, one of the biggest labels. "The consumer, on the other hand, is about 80-20."
The biggest evangelist for Democrats is Hendrix, a 38-year-old schmoozy North Carolinian who was behind the marketing of religious blockbuster "The Passion of the Christ." Despite being a player in the Christian Media Kingdom, he thought -- until recently -- that he had to stay in the political closet.
Until Hillary Clinton.
"My grandmother was born the year women got the right to vote, and I was raised by a lot of strong-willed women. I just got passionate about her," says Hendrix, who gets a strangely dreamy sound in his voice when he talks about meeting Madeleine Albright at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Hendrix has demanded that his musician clients let him stage rallies or set up informational tables for Democrats, at or near their shows, whether they like it or not. About half his artists are fine with that, he says, while the others agree somewhat reluctantly.
But how does this cultural crusade go down with fans? If Hendrix's experience is a barometer, it may be a mixed bag. He says he staged hundreds of Clinton events at concerts before she dropped out, including Young Harmony at Ole Country Church in McDonough, Ga., and the gospel group Heirline at Victory Baptist Church in Dallas. There were repercussions. Someone tried to run over a volunteer (yes, with a car) in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Coffee was thrown in Hendrix's face in Raleigh, N.C. A few radio stations he worked with sent back his CDs, cracked.
"He could have possibly lost his business," says Angie Hoskins, a "lifelong Democrat" who has won multiple awards with her gospel band, the Hoskins Family.
The scene for a Democratic performer is "tough. It. Is. Tough," she says. "We have to be really careful how much we say, because in the industry we work in, it can pretty much kick you out if you're not careful."
Derek Webb, an award-winning contemporary Christian musician who considers himself politically independent, says many churches stopped inviting him to play after he came out in 2005 with "A King and a Kingdom," which included these lyrics:
There are two great lies that I've heard
"The day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die"
And that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class Republican
What chances does this campaign have? Alan Mason, a programming consultant for contemporary Christian radio stations, says he tells clients to pay attention to the Democratic outreach because the next generation of listeners may have somewhat different views. "There is a real change going on," he says. "It's important we understand."
And Hendrix said he found 100 people eager to talk Democratic values with him in Louisville, at the National Quartet Convention, a Christian singing event.
That may be an anomaly, suggest other industry insiders. Listeners are "unmistakably" conservative, particularly on issues of when life begins and of marriage, says Joe Davis, president of the radio division for Salem Communications, the country's largest Christian radio broadcaster, with shows going to 2,000 affiliates.
Amy Sullivan, a journalist who recently wrote "The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats Are Closing the God Gap," said yesterday at a convention of religion reporters that her book title may have been overly hopeful. "The playing field isn't terribly different than it was 2004," she said.
Some industry insiders say performers should keep their yaps shut about politics or risk alienating customers. No one has forgotten the Dixie Chicks, who temporarily lost a large swath of their audience -- and got death threats that the FBI took seriously -- after criticizing President Bush in 2003.
Hubbard, the promoter from EMI, contends that Christian artists have loftier things on their minds, anyway. "The majority of our artists look at what they are trying to accomplish as much bigger than who will be the next president," he says.
"I want to tell a story that transcends politics," says Sara Groves, a singer who performed before the Republican convention. "A lot of [Christian musicians] I'm talking to are talking about what's wrong with both parties, and we're dreaming about, wouldn't it be great if there was this common human goal?"
Meanwhile, Tom Tradup, who oversees national syndicated talk shows for Salem Radio Network, says Democrats' absence on Christian radio is their own fault. "Senator [John] McCain has appeared on virtually every show on my network at least a half-dozen times since primary season began. We have a red carpet out on every Salem show since Obama announced, and so far we've seen neither hide nor hair of him," he says. At the Denver convention, he says, he repeatedly tried to nab Obama or his religious outreach staffers to go on air, to no avail.
A spokesman for the Obama campaign said yesterday that the focus has been on local radio, including some Salem stations.
But the Democratic machine's drive toward Nashville (and California, home of Salem, and Colorado, home of the massive Focus on the Family organization) seems likely to eventually reach Tradup.
Hendrix and Strider have formed a consulting group and are building a massive mailing list of Christian media consumers that can be used by Democratic candidates and those promoting liberal issues, such as global warming. And Hendrix might want to use that list himself: He recently announced his plans to run for the U.S. House from North Carolina in 2010.
LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; Rick Hendrix Co.; Promoter Rick Hendrix insists that his clients let him stage rallies or set up informational tables for Democrats. The reception is sometimes negative.
IMAGE; By Peter Sachs -- Religion News Service; Burns Strider is working with a major Christian music promoter to connect fans with Democratic candidates.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
September 19, 2008 Friday
Regional Edition
'Always for Less Regulation'?;
John McCain's record on Wall Street oversight gets some misleading spin from Barack Obama.
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A18
TO LISTEN to Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain is a Johnny-come-lately to the cause of regulating financial markets. "He has consistently opposed the sorts of common-sense regulations that might have lessened the current crisis," Mr. Obama said in New Mexico yesterday. "When I was warning about the danger ahead on Wall Street months ago because of the lack of oversight, Senator McCain was telling the Wall Street Journal -- and I quote -- 'I'm always for less regulation.' "
But the full quotation from Mr. McCain's March interview with the Journal's editorial board belies Mr. Obama's one-sided rendition. The Republican candidate went on to say, "But I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight. I think we found this in the subprime lending crisis -- that there are people that game the system and if not outright broke the law, they certainly engaged in unethical conduct which made this problem worse. So I do believe that there is role for oversight."
It's fair to say that Mr. McCain has dramatically ramped up the regulatory rhetoric in the wake of the meltdown on Wall Street. Mr. Obama made the argument about the need for increased oversight much earlier. And Mr. McCain has generally taken an anti-regulatory stance, although not in all cases -- his support for federal regulation of tobacco and boxing being prominent counter-examples. Mr. McCain backed a moratorium on all new federal regulation in 1995, saying that excessive regulations were "destroying the American family, the American dream." On the campaign trail in 2000, he touted his record of voting "for smaller government, for less regulation."
However, when it comes to regulating financial institutions and corporate misconduct, Mr. McCain's record is more in keeping with his current rhetoric. In the aftermath of the Enron collapse and other accounting scandals, he was a leader, with Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), in pushing to require that companies treat stock options granted to employees as expenses on their balance sheets. "I have long opposed unnecessary regulation of business activity, mindful that the heavy hand of government can discourage innovation," he wrote in a July 2002 op-ed in the New York Times. "But in the current climate only a restoration of the system of checks and balances that once protected the American investor -- and that has seriously deteriorated over the past 10 years -- can restore the confidence that makes financial markets work."
Mr. McCain was an early voice calling for the resignation of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt, charging that he "seems to prefer industry self-policing to necessary lawmaking. Government's demands for corporate accountability are only credible if government executives are held accountable as well."
In 2006, he pushed for stronger regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- while Mr. Obama was notably silent. "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole," Mr. McCain warned at the time.
One element of the Obama campaign's brief against Mr. McCain is that he supported repeal of the law separating commercial banks from investment banks. "He's spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers," Mr. Obama said yesterday. "Phil Gramm, one of the architects of the deregulation in Washington that led directly to this mess on Wall Street, is also the architect of John McCain's economic plan." Would it be churlish to point out that another author of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley law is former congressman Jim Leach, a founder of Republicans for Obama? Or that Obama advisers Lawrence H. Summers and Robert E. Rubin supported the repeal -- which was signed by President Bill Clinton?
It's a reasonable question which candidate has been more attentive to the brewing problems on Wall Street and which has a better prescription for them. But Mr. Obama's attack does not give a fair reading of the McCain record.
LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 19, 2008 Friday
Met 2 Edition
GOP Sees Rebound in Battle for Congress;
Party Hopes Momentum Will Help Limit Losses
BYLINE: Shailagh Murray and Paul Kane; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Like many of her Republican colleagues concerned about their reelection prospects, Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina skipped the party's national convention to focus on campaigning back home. But even in her absence, the gathering may have given her bid for a return to office its biggest boost yet.
Volunteers began showing up at GOP campaign offices at quadruple the pre-convention pace, many of them conservatives who were lukewarm to presidential nominee John McCain but ecstatic about his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Their enthusiasm could be Dole's saving grace on Nov. 4.
"We have to move out of here and take on this fight big-time," Dole said at a GOP dinner in North Carolina earlier this month, acknowledging, "We're in a very tough cycle."
After months of fundraising doldrums, recruitment misfires and daunting polls, Republicans believe they are finally on the rebound in the battle for Congress. Both sides concede that the GOP stands almost no chance of taking back the House or Senate in November, but party leaders think the Palin factor and an increasingly competitive fight for the White House have generated enthusiasm and momentum that could limit GOP losses to only a few Senate seats and perhaps fewer than a dozen House seats.
As evidence of the jolt provided to the party base by the Republican convention and the selection of Palin, strategists point to recent polls showing a bounce in "generic" polling. In August, a USA Today-Gallup poll gave Democrats a 51 to 42 percent lead on the question of which party voters would support in a congressional election in their district. In the days after the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn., ended earlier this month, Republicans had climbed to a 50 to 45 percent advantage.
Republicans are especially bullish about the changing Senate landscape. Democrats have never envisioned an easy path to a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority, but polls suggest that prospect has been reduced to a near impossibility in recent weeks.
Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has pulled out of Georgia, probably a fatal blow to former state representative Jim Martin in his bid to unseat Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss. Another long shot, state Rep. Rick Noriega in Texas, has been outraised 9 to 1 by Republican Sen. John Cornyn. State Sen. Andrew Rice is not showing significant gains against GOP Sen. James M. Inhofe in Oklahoma, and Republican Sen. Susan Collins appears to be holding firm in Maine, where she faces Rep. Tom Allen.
"Sarah Palin definitely gave a boost, no question" said Sen. John Ensign (Nev.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "In races where we were way down, a lot of those races are even. In some of the races that were even, we are up." And public polls do not tell the full story, Ensign argued. He said internal data show a decisive shift among likely Republican voters who appear ready to turn out in droves on Election Day in states across the board.
But Democrats continue to believe that their prospects remain bright in a number of states that would normally appear to be reaches for the party, including the showdown in North Carolina between Dole and state Sen. Kay Hagan. The party's best chances in the Senate are open seats in Virginia and New Mexico, gateways to two regions -- the South and the West -- that Democrats hope they have room to grow in. The party also has strong potential in Oregon, Colorado, New Hampshire and even Mississippi.
Despite the Dole campaign's renewed optimism, polls show the presidential race is close in North Carolina, and congressional elections analyst Stuart Rothenberg recently shifted the state race from "narrow advantage for incumbent" to "tossup," concluding in his Sept. 10 newsletter that "North Carolina is a problem for Republicans."
Mississippi is a GOP headache that neither party anticipated until Democrats scored an unlikely victory in a special election to fill a vacant House seat in the state earlier this year. Party leaders convinced former governor Ronnie Musgrove to challenge Sen. Roger Wicker, who was appointed to the seat left vacant by Republican Trent Lott's resignation earlier this year. The NRSC has become so concerned with its prospects there that it announced this week that it would finance its second statewide round of advertising for Wicker.
Ensign said he remains "very confident" that Republicans will be able to prevail in North Carolina and Mississippi, but acknowledged that such unexpected vulnerabilities have created a financial hardship for his committee -- which lagged far behind its Democratic counterpart in available cash, $43 million to $25 million, at the end of July.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said the only discernable slippage in Senate polls for Democrats has come in Alaska, Palin's home state (although he noted that Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich is still favored over Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, who will go on trial next week on corruption charges).
Disputing Ensign's rosy view of the playing field for Republicans, Schumer said Democratic candidates have stabilized in Colorado and New Hampshire and have gained in races in Oregon and Minnesota. "I expected us to be down in the last two weeks in a number of races," he said. "But we have found that the little surge that McCain and Palin have had, which we think is temporary, has not affected our Senate races. We're in better shape today than we were a month ago."
Republican optimism also is on the rise in the House, where more than 70 seats are considered competitive. Minority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) predicted that increased enthusiasm among Christian conservatives will result in a strong finish for McCain and GOP congressional candidates. In addition to Palin, Blunt credited McCain with his performance in a nationally televised appearance with evangelical minister Rick Warren that was well received by conservatives, along with his reversal on offshore oil drilling (McCain now favors expanding production).
"We still have some significant challenges out there, but House Republicans are feeling a lot better," Blunt said.
Democrats continue to take heart in the fact that President Bush remains deeply unpopular -- something a fresh round of economic turmoil is unlikely to change -- and the party's challengers in races nationwide, such as Hagan, are working furiously to link Republican incumbents to his legacy. The president frequently visited North Carolina when Dole ran for the Senate six years ago. The former Cabinet secretary touted her close ties to the administration.
Dole's loyalty may now be cutting the other way. Hagan connects her to Bush in every speech and campaign ad, and even Dole insiders concede that Hagan's hard-charging style and aggressive fundraising paid early dividends, drawing the notice of Democratic leaders months ago and resulting in a big advertising investment for her despite Dole's lopsided victory in 2002.
Neither side is pulling punches. One pro-Hagan DSCC ad featured two older men in rocking chairs debating whether Dole was "92" or "93" -- a reference to her voting percentage in support of Bush, but widely interpreted as a dig at her age (she is 72).
Dole responded with an ad questioning Hagan's truthfulness, portraying the Democrat as a barking dog named "Fibber Kay." An NRSC-funded spot features a Dr. Seuss-style reading lesson about Hagan's tax record.
But Hagan's biggest asset may be the massive Obama organizing effort that began in the state during the primary season. New voter registrations favor Democrats by an 8 to 1 ratio.
Hagan said she noticed "a bump after the Republican convention," but contends her race with Dole "is starting to settle back down." Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), the Democratic vice presidential nominee, campaigned in Charlotte earlier this week, and Obama's wife, Michelle, appeared on her behalf in Greensboro yesterday.
Dole spokesman Dan McLagan said he is confident that the race has shifted. "I get the sense that we're starting to pull away," he said. But state political experts say the outcome is far from clear.
Andrew Taylor, a political science professor at North Carolina State University, said: "The state is increasingly cosmopolitan, with a large number of people who have moved in from the East and the Midwest. Dole used to be seen as the kind of Republican who should do well in the new demographics. The old Republican model was seen as antiquated, and she represented the new model. If she can't win, or doesn't win, I think it says more than 'It's a bad year.' "
LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Chuck Liddy -- News And Observer; Sen. Elizabeth Dole, with husband Robert J. Dole, is relying on enthusiasm from GOP faithful in her reelection bid.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
September 19, 2008 Friday
Scary times on 'the third rail'
BYLINE: By Wesley Pruden, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; PRUDEN ON POLITICS; A04
It's a little early to play the race card, but the Obama partisans, if not Barack Obama himself, are scared. They don't know what else to do to get their expectations, so carefully nurtured over spring and summer, in line with reality. The mainstream media's ganging up on a pregnant 17-year-old girl didn't work. Neither did the candidate's calling her mother a pig.
After Mr. Obama became the inevitable president, dispatching Hillary Clinton, the inevitable nominee, his cult thought it was going to be a downhill coast to a left turn into Pennsylvania Avenue. Alas, the slam dunk - the favorite metaphor of midsummer - now looks more like a lost ball. Suddenly it's all elbows and rim shots. The politics of hope has been reduced to the politics of merely hopeful.
He sent his wife out yesterday to warn voters not to vote for someone just because she's "cute," and when that got a harsh look from one of her handlers she quickly added that she was talking about herself. Michelle is cute enough, but she's not running for anything, so far as anyone knows. (Maybe in France.) Joe Biden, the Democratic dream candidate for nearly two full days in Denver, is stumbling like everybody thought he would. He told a rally Thursday that higher taxes are coming and paying them is a "patriotic" duty. Just shut up and pay up.
The small but steady Obama lead in the polls, having evaporated in the wake of the two conventions, is enough to scare confident Democrats. The betting odds favoring Mr. Obama were off the board only a month ago; now those odds are essentially even. John McCain, moving up to a tie or even going ahead by a point or two in overnight tracking polls, has moved out front in the race for electoral votes, as measured in the state-by-state polling.
If all that were not enough bad news, John McCain and the unreliable Republicans just won't raise the race issue. Heavy-handed though some of the McCain rhetoric and television commercials about the legitimate issues may be, the Republicans and their friends have stayed apart from anything suggesting race, understanding that race has replaced Social Security as the deadly "third rail" of American politics, something for everybody to think about but not for anybody to talk about except in empty platitudes. Goading John McCain's friends, if not the senator himself, to talk about race, so the Obama boodlers and bundlers reckon, would inoculate him against having to answer embarrassing questions about who he has been hanging out with over the past two decades and prevent critical examination of his Senate record (if anyone could find it). When the campaign moved through September, summer waned, and nobody in the McCain camp showed signs of crying race, someone else had to do it.
When someone asked Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, the Democratic governor of Kansas, why Mr. Obama can't seem to achieve take-off speed, she stepped up to put a match to the kindling. "Have any of you noticed that Barack Obama is part African-American?" she asked. "That may be a factor. All the code language, all that doesn't show up in the polls. And that may be a factor for some people."
Out in the down-ballot fly-over country, where the Obama magic is dissipating in the local legislative races, subtlety rarely has to be a virtue. "Race, that's the only reason people in the Valley won't vote for him," says state Rep. Thomas Letson, who thought he had a lock on re-election to the Ohio legislature and now thinks maybe he doesn't. "There are a thousand reasons to vote for Obama and one reason why you won't. Race."
Another rattled Ohio incumbent, state Rep. Robert Hagan, told the Youngstown Vindicator that it's the independents, on whom the politicians depend to rescue them from close encounters of the scariest kind, who are the racists.
That might not be a death rattle in the throats of Democrats, but it sounds like something more than throat-clearing. Mr. Obama told a rally in Las Vegas that his supporters have to "get in the faces of Republicans," presumably to say and do things "the transcendent One" never would. He's concerned, perhaps rightly, about the tendency of voters to tell pollsters they'll vote for a black candidate when they actually won't, lest they be regarded as racists. Nobody puts a number on it, though one Democratic pollster says "unless Obama has a five-point polling lead on Election Day he's toast." That's scary, and it's not yet Halloween.
* Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Times.
LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2008
GRAPHIC: Michelle Obama [NO CREDIT]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 19, 2008 Friday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
RECIPE FOR LOSING
"[Sen. John] McCain was always the Republican every Democrat I knew feared most, precisely because he has long been the one we liked most," Susan Estrich writes at www.foxnews.com.
"He is not, as one of my liberal media friends said derisively, a doddering old man. He is a very smart guy with an amazing story to tell whose service and sacrifice for this country, and his willingness to stand up to his party on important issues, deserve respect, and he gets it from everyone but the hard left," the writer said.
"To be sure, at the beginning of the summer, McCain's campaign was pretty unfocused and disorganized. It isn't anymore.
"Expecting Republicans to run lousy campaigns is a recipe for losing. They are good at campaigns. Attacking them for their negativity is no way to beat them. Attacking John McCain for not using a computer is beyond dumb. (I actually had a debate with one Obama supporter about whether McCain should have been able to adjust the position of the keyboard so as to type notwithstanding his war injuries. It finally ended when I practically screamed that any debate that turned on just how severe McCain's injuries were during his POW days was a debate he won. Oy.)"
FLORIDA TIED
A CNN poll released Wednesday showed Florida's presidential race tied with 48 percent for both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, but it seemed contrary to other polls showing Mr. McCain with a solid lead of five to eight points in the Republican-leaning state.
But two new polls released Thursday also suggest the state may be closer than pundits expected. American Research Group has the candidates at 46 percent each in Florida, and a National Journal poll has them tied at 44 percent each.
Despite those surveys, pollster Scott Rasmussen told Christina Bellantoni of The Washington Times that his recent surveys also have given Mr. McCain the lead. But he's not surprised Florida is tightening, given the spate of bad economic news.
"None of us really know how the financial crisis will play out," he said Thursday.
Mr. Rasmussen also suggested that Mr. Obama's aggressive advertising over the summer - several million in ads while Mr. McCain spent nothing - may be paying off.
The latest ad analysis showed the candidates nearly even in Sunshine State spending, but Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told supporters in a Web video this week the Florida campaign would "cost" $39 million. Mr. McCain is limited to spending $84 million nationwide since he is using public financing while Mr. Obama is not. Still, pollsters don't think Florida will remain so close for long.
"I don't think Florida is the state that will put [Mr. Obama] over top," Mr. Rasmussen predicted.
DIFFERENT STANDARD
"Liberal columnists and the mainstream media have been unusually tolerant of Barack Obama's exaggerated claims of major legislative accomplishments," Fred Barnes writes at www.weeklystandard.com.
"Just this week, Obama said his proposal was the 'basis' for the economic stimulus package that was enacted last winter, a claim even Democrats regard as false. But Sarah Palin's insistence that, as governor of Alaska, she killed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere - that's another story. She's accused of lying by the Obama-leaning media," Mr. Barnes said.
"She isn't lying. Palin did kill the bridge. It wasn't an act of great political courage. It didn't have to be, since the bridge had become a national symbol of wasteful congressional spending. But Palin did have the option of saving the project - several options actually. And there was still some support for the bridge among state and local (in Ketchikan, where the bridge was to be built) officials in Alaska. But Palin chose to terminate the whole thing.
"Maybe it's her bravado that has driven Palin's critics to distraction. In her speech accepting the vice-presidential nomination at the Republican nomination, she declared she'd sent Washington this message about the bridge: 'Thanks, but no thanks.' She's repeated that line in campaign appearances.
"In any case, the contrast with Obama, who has no major accomplishments to show for his four years in the Senate, is striking. Besides killing the bridge, Palin brought down the Republican establishment in Alaska and took on the oil companies in the state."
GEOGRAPHIC GAFFE
John McCain either doesn't want to meet Spain's prime minister any time soon or isn't quite sure who he is, the Associated Press reports.
In a radio interview broadcast Thursday in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, the Republican presidential candidate repeatedly dodged questions as to whether he would invite Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to the White House if McCain wins in November.
"All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not," Mr. McCain said. "And that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region."
He had been asked, however, about a leader in the other hemisphere, one who has never met President Bush face to face since Mr. Zapatero pulled Spain's troops out of Iraq.
Mr. McCain added, when that was pointed out: "I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom and I will stand up to those that do not."
Responding to the first of four questions on whether he would confer with Mr. Zapatero, Mr. McCain said he'd talk with leaders who cooperate with the U.S. and then discussed Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his work in fighting drug cartels.
MICHELLE VS. SARAH
Michelle Obama asked voters Thursday to make their choice on the issues, not because, "I like that guy" or "she's cute."
Might she be talking about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin?
"I'm talking about me," she said with a smile.
Sen. Barack Obama's wife, however, is not on the ticket in the presidential election. Mrs. Palin is.
Mrs. Obama is part of a concerted effort involving her husband, his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to neutralize the appeal that Mrs. Palin has brought to Sen. John McCain's ticket for some female voters. They are doing so unmistakably but gingerly, so as to not appear sexist or invite another lipstick-on-a-pig tempest, the Associated Press reports.
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com
LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2008
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 18, 2008 Thursday
Final Edition
U.S. digs deep for bailouts;
To fund financial rescue, government taps its reserves - and borrows
BYLINE: MARTIN CRUTSINGER
SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. B-7
Where does Uncle Sam come up with huge sums of money during a financial emergency? Like the rest of us, the government taps its reserves and borrows if it needs more.
The federal government has pledged eye-popping amounts - more than $600 billion in the past year - to bail out, or help bail out, huge names in American finance.
Now the credit crisis is starting to tax even the Federal Reserve's deep resources.
Yesterday, the central bank took the unprecedented step of asking the Treasury Department to sell debt on behalf of the Fed. The first of those auctions raised $40 billion, and two more to raise an additional $60 billion are scheduled for today.
Analysts said these auctions don't mean the Fed, the bank that backs up the U.S. banking system, is strapped for money. Instead, it represents a Fed effort to better manage its own holdings of Treasury securities.
It uses those securities to control interest rates by buying or selling the securities to banks, thus raising and lowering the amount of money banks have to lend and influencing the price of that money.
While the Fed has access to its fat piggy bank to help prop up financial companies, the Treasury Department will have to whip out the credit card for the support it is pledging to mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Treasury will have to borrow the money because it doesn't have the deep reserves that the Fed does. The country is running a huge budget deficit this year and is projected to run an even bigger one next year.
Those deficits will present a major challenge for the next president. The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that the candidates' spending priorities and promises for tax cuts will cost $4.2 trillion over the next decade in the case of John McCain and $2.9 trillion in the case of Barack Obama.
The Bush administration is projecting that the deficit for the new budget year, which begins Oct. 1, will surge to a record $482 billion. And that doesn't include any costs for bailing out Fannie and Freddie.
Uncle Sam's rescue
Four recent actions cost $600+ billion of taxpayer money.
* Up to $200 billion combined was made available to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, giving the government a nearly 80 percent stake in the mortgage finance companies.
* AIG gets $85 billion, two-year loan. The U.S. has the right to a nearly 80 percent stake in one of the world's largest insurers.
* Fed's $29 billion loan helps JPMorgan take over Bear Stearns.
* Up to $300 billion in refinanced mortgages for troubled borrowers can be insured by the Federal Housing Administration in a program starting Oct. 1.
--SOURCE: The Associated Press
LOAD-DATE: September 20, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
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The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
September 18, 2008 Thursday
Metro Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B8
Sarah Palin is at least as qualified as Tim Kaine
So far, most letters I have read in this paper have been critical of Gov. Sarah Palin. You watch all of the news shows and it's the same thing. So I say to her critics, answer this:
A few weeks before Barack Obama chose his running mate, Gov. Tim Kaine was on his short list of candidates. Kaine was first elected to Richmond City Council in 1994 and served on the council until 1998. He served as mayor from 1998 to 2001, followed by four years as lieutenant governor, and then he was elected governor in 2005.
Palin was first elected to Wasilla, Alaska, City Council in 1992 and served on council until 1996. She then served as mayor from 1996 to 2002. She was chairwoman of an energy commission from 2003 to 2004 before being elected governor in 2006.
It looks to me that she has been in government service longer than Kaine and has only a few months less time in office as a governor than he. So if the Democrats said Kaine is qualified to be vice president, shouldn't they say that Palin is, too, based on their time in office?
Stacey A. Cyrus
Roanoke
God isn't sending the troops out
I have always found it offensive when political leaders indicate they are doing God's will when waging war.
Wars may be justified, as was our action against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan following Sept. 11, 2001. This was an appropriate United States reaction to a dastardly attack against us, but it is presumptuous to claim that our action was God's will. This is exactly the claim made by Islamic fundamental terrorists to justify their attacks.
I feel that our war in Iraq -- based, at best, on faulty intelligence, more likely on Bush's advisers telling him what he wanted to hear -- was not just.
Others such as John McCain and Sarah Palin may disagree. However, for Palin to say of our troops going to Iraq that "our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God" is frightening.
Ira Jacobs
Blacksburg
McCain should run from smear ad
I agree strongly with William J. FitzPatrick in his Sept. 7 letter "A Swift-boat attack on Obama."
Paid for by the "American Issues Project" (whomever they might be), this scurrilous television ad, an obvious promotion for John McCain, links Barack Obama to terrorism when Obama was only 8 years old.
McCain could and should stop this Karl Rove-inspired propaganda. Earlier, McCain promised straight talk. He must back his promise by distancing himself from this divisive sort of support. McCain must be an adult and rise above smearing, fear-inducing dirty politics if he hopes to be worthy of the country's highest office.
Lately, McCain claims to focus on change and hope, both part of Obama's original message. Those goals seem unreachable if McCain clings to the tactics and policies of the last eight years -- especially if his campaign and his supporters continue to spread lies and allow defamation.
Aren't we, as a nation, dedicated to being above such behavior?
Harriet Little
Fincastle
Faith compels a vote for Obama
My family has always voted Republican, until this year. What has changed our minds first and foremost is the war in Iraq.
How do we as a Christian faith feel that we are justified in inflicting death and suffering on a group of people for any cause, especially a completely unjustifiable one?
When Sarah Palin stated in her speech that the Iraq war was "God's task," it was the nail in the coffin for our family. The hypocrisy of these types of statements is the reason the Republican Party will not be the winning ticket in November.
The people of our still redeemable, great country cannot afford to have this type of leadership guarding our children and grandchildren from the world's unpredictable nature.
I love America and am no less patriotic than any other person in the U.S., and we will vote for Barack Obama proudly because we believe that his change is exactly what this country will and must have.
D.H. Hensley
Bedford
News story abetted Goode's deception
I am disappointed that the article "Goode, Perriello face off" (Sept. 4 news story) cited the bad mathematics Rep. Virgil Goode used without letting readers know how Goode was manipulating the numbers.
After Tom Perriello cited the statistic that Goode is ranked 60 out of 66 members of the House Appropriations Committee in terms of effectiveness, the congressman turned that ratio into 60 out of 430. Goode deliberately changed the numbers to put himself in a better light. It is as if he had a rank of 60th in the 5th District and then bragged that he was 60th in the whole state.
This piece of data makes him an embarrassment to our district. The person we elect to represent the 5th District should be effective in Washington and make us proud. I believe Perriello will do exactly that.
We also need news reports that help readers sort fact from fiction so that we are not led astray by fabricated data.
Antoinette Seidelmann
Moneta
Another Georgia, a similar invasion
Even to the most casual student of history, the headlines of the past weeks must have seemed familiar. To simplify my point, I shall refer to Vladimir Putin as "Lincoln Two."
1. A young republic, Georgia, declares its independence from a larger and aggressive northern neighbor.
2. The Georgians seek only territorial integrity and to be left alone.
3. Lincolns One and Two insist on maintaining troops within the border of their respective Georgias.
4. Lincoln One creates a phony rationale (freeing of slaves), as does Lincoln Two (protecting Russian "citizens").
5. Georgia attempts to remove the aforementioned troops from its borders.
6. Lincoln One and Lincoln Two respond by further invasion.
The simple truth is that government by the consent of the governed ended for this part of the country in 1865. We now enjoy the benefit of government at the point of a bayonet. Let's hope Lincoln Two's Georgia does not suffer the same fate.
Yes, my young, Yankee yobs, you may rest assured that if Lincoln Two remains in Georgia, the history books 140 years from now will tell of the valiant invasion by Russian heroes to free their downtrodden fellow citizens.
Wendell K. Johnson
Bedford
Want good roads? Expect to pay
Everyone I know hates to have cash from their hard-earned money taken from them to pay taxes. Yet, those same people demand better roads, bridges and fewer potholes.
We are all Americans who, as a whole, demand and expect good service from our government. We simply need to pay a reasonable amount of our income to get these benefits. Anyone who disagrees should be one of the first to crash on a collapsing bridge, or worse.
I am not advocating pork for unnecessary projects just to get votes. However, I am stating that we must all pay our fair share to live in the best country on the face of our Earth.
Randolph Gibson
Vinton
Artist walked away for good reason
The article on the controversy over Mary Tartaro's show at Roanoke College was a diversion from the real issue ("Artist miffed that Olin won't exhibit dress," Sept. 5 Virginia story).
As the only other person who heard exactly what gallery director Talia Logan told Tartaro, I can confidently assure the public that my wife's actions were fully justified. Logan's decision to censor certain pieces was not at all a curatorial one, but an attempt to avoid the aggravation of possible controversy.
I am fairly certain that Logan herself did not find these works offensive, but acted on behalf of her assumption about her audience without allowing them to judge for themselves.
The public reasons Logan states for the removal of the pieces in question are not the real reasons. Tartaro's decision to pull her entire show was not a "tantrum" but a refusal to participate in a climate of fear.
Alan O'Beirne
Blacksburg
LOAD-DATE: October 28, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 18, 2008 Thursday
VP Zone NC Edition
Battle for White House makes way to N.C.
BYLINE: LIZ SIDOTI AND MIKE BAKER
By Liz Sidoti and Mike Baker
The Associated Press
RALEIGH
All of a sudden, North Carolina matters.
It hasn't for decades in presidential elections.
Then Democrat Barack Obama made an aggressive play for this traditionally GOP state and polls showed the race tightening. That forced Republican John McCain to defend his turf or risk ceding the Southern state - and its 15 electoral votes - to Democrats for the first time in 32 years.
Now, seven weeks before the election, North Carolina has become a general-election battleground, one of 13 states where both candidates are competing with television commercials and campaign staff on the ground.
"They clearly see the threat," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said after McCain's campaign intensified its efforts here.
Steve Schmidt, McCain's chief strategist, insists the campaign is unconcerned: " John McCain will win North Carolina and soon you will see the Obama camp withdraw from North Carolina like you have seen them withdraw from other states."
Public polling shows a competitive race, though private surveys for both Republicans and Democrats give McCain an edge of anywhere from 3 to 8 percentage points.
A Time/CNN/Opinion Research Corp., poll released Wednesday showed the race virtually tied. Arizona Sen. McCain had 48 percent; Illinois Sen. Obama, 47 percent .
The challenge for Obama may have increased after McCain selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, a choice that has energized conservatives. At a recent Republican gathering in Cary for veterans, the mere mention of Palin's name drew thunderous applause while McCain's name elicited a tepid response.
"I'm not that thrilled about McCain," said James Arscott, 66, a National Guard veteran and a Republican. "That is, I wasn't thrilled about McCain until Sarah Palin came about."
Even Democratic loyalists say it is difficult to imagine North Carolina voting for Obama, who would be the country's first black president. "I would be stunned," said Tim Rohde, a Democrat from Raleigh. "But it would be amazing."
Look no further than the state's population spurt - and its origins - to understand why Obama thinks he has a shot this year, and why McCain isn't taking it for granted.
The state has seen steady growth over the past four years as transplants from the more liberal Northeast were drawn to the region for jobs.
Voter registration rolls also illustrate the shifting tide.
State Board of Elections records show that Democratic registrations have risen 7 percent since the start of 2008, while Republican registrations grew about 1 percent. There are now about 40 percent more Democrats than Republicans in North Carolina, although members of both state parties tend to be more conservative than their national counterparts. Registrations among blacks, a pivotal part of the Democratic base, are up almost 10 percent while white registrations are up 4 percent.
The number of registrations for voters who don't claim a political party jumped 11 percent this year.
Obama visit
Michelle Obama will campaign today in Charlotte and Greensboro, campaign officials said. The appearances will be her first in North Carolina since May to campaign for her husband, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Tickets are free but required for both events and can be picked up at Obama campaign offices in Greensboro, High Point and Charlotte.
MORE COVERAGE The latest news from the campaign trail. Front section, Page 10
LOAD-DATE: September 18, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 18, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
Recent Obama Ads More Negative Than Rival's, Study Says;
Democrat Said to Be Facing Pressure to 'Show Some Spine'
BYLINE: Howard Kurtz; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
Despite perceptions that Sen. John McCain has spent more time on the attack, Sen. Barack Obama aired more negative advertising last week than did the Arizona Republican, says a study released yesterday.
Seventy-seven percent of the Illinois Democrat's commercials were negative during the week after the Republican National Convention, compared with 56 percent of the spots run by McCain.
Ken Goldstein, who directed the study by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, based at the University of Wisconsin, says the pattern was a reversal from earlier months, in which McCain's advertising was consistently more negative than Obama's.
"It suggests that the Sarah Palin pick and the newfound aggressiveness by McCain got into Obama's head a little bit," Goldstein said. "He was under great pressure to show some spine, be aggressive, fire back."
The study found Obama limiting his television buys to 17 states and McCain airing spots in 15. For all the talk of an expanded electoral map, both campaigns are concentrating resources in traditional battlegrounds, with slightly more than half the total spent on advertising going to Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.
"Shockingly, this race is going to come down to swing voters in the same swing states that decided the last two elections," Goldstein said.
The study says the campaigns poured $15 million into the ad wars last week -- they were virtually even in total spending -- but the figures revealed an important distinction. Obama, who has rejected public financing in favor of private fundraising, paid for 97 percent of his spots. McCain, who is limited to an $84 million federal subsidy, financed 43 percent of his commercials, with the rest airing in conjunction with the Republican National Committee. These "hybrid" spots allow McCain to retain control while the party foots much of the bill.
Obama spent more on ads in Florida, $1.3 million, but that was nearly matched by McCain's $1 million. The most McCain spent was in traditionally Democratic Pennsylvania -- $1.6 million to Obama's $948.000.
Obama was on the air in Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, North Dakota and Montana, all states won by President Bush in the last two elections.
Interest-group advertising was marginal at $187,000, although that is expected to ramp up in the coming weeks. Three pro-Obama groups aired commercials -- the Service Employees International Union, Defenders of Wildlife and Planned Parenthood -- while one, Vets for Freedom, ran spots on McCain's behalf.
LOAD-DATE: September 18, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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September 18, 2008 Thursday
Market creates political turmoil;
Candidates grope for Rx
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. John McCain blames the current economic crisis on Washington's failure to combat greed and excess on Wall Street while his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, views it as the inevitable consequences of Republican policies he says have failed the middle class.
Both men are struggling to hit the right notes in the midst of the Wall Street mess, facing the reality that there aren't many levers a presidential candidate, or even a president, can pull for a quick fix. As a result, the two men seeking to be president have been less specific on immediate solutions while touting their longer-term plans to revive the economy and insulate everyday Americans from the impact.
"This isn't just a string of bad luck. The truth is, while you've been living up to your responsibilities, Washington has not," Mr. Obama says in a two-minute commercial. "That's why we need change, real change."
As the problems mounted - the latest was the news that American International Group Inc. would receive an $85 billion bailout - Mr. McCain abandoned his long-held hands-off approach to business and investors, reluctantly supporting the AIG bailout and promising to bring the full weight of government scrutiny and regulations to Wall Street.
"The focus of any such action should be to protect the millions of Americans who hold insurance policies, retirement plans and other accounts with AIG," Mr. McCain said. "We must not bail out the management and speculators who created this mess."
Just a day earlier, the senator praised the government's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers and said he did "not believe that the American taxpayer should be on the hook for AIG."
Mr. McCain has adopted a corporate-fighting tone, peppering his speeches and interviews with words like "greedy" and "corrupt." He has said the government must ensure that investors and insurance policyholders don't suffer because of the company's failures.
At the General Motors Orion assembly plant in Michigan on Wednesday, Mr. McCain told workers: "We are going to fight the special interests and corruption in Washington. We are going to fight the greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street."
Neither candidate has detailed what new regulations or reforms he intends for Wall Street, but both have been expansive in explaining how they plan to protect families from the meltdown's ill effects and to expand the economy.
Mr. Obama promises $200 billion in government spending on infrastructure and renewable energy, which he said would produce jobs and boost local economies. He also offered as a cushion his plan to cut taxes for families making less than $250,000 a year, offset by raising taxes on those making higher incomes.
In another new television commercial, he criticizes President Bush and Mr. McCain by showing footage of chained gates and fencing surrounding what appears to be an abandoned factory. He used the same tactic in the Democratic primary campaign against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Mr. McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for the first time broke her silence with the press corps traveling with her, telling reporters that the AIG bailout was "understandable but very, very disappointing that taxpayers are called upon for another one."
Even as the policy prescriptions accumulate, so do the insults and gaffes.
Mr. McCain has been challenged for suggesting Monday that the economy's fundamentals remain strong, and his campaign's problems this week were compounded when top adviser Carly Fiorina, former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, saying that neither the senator nor Mrs. Palin would be ready to run a major company. Also, his top domestic policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, told reporters that as a former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Mr. McCain was responsible for the BlackBerry smart phone.
Mr. Obama's campaign on Wednesday issued a statement calling AIG "American Insurance Group."
* Christina Bellantoni contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 18, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 18, 2008 Thursday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE POLITICS; A08
Riding the tide
"The McCain convention bump seems to be subsiding, and the tracking polls suggest the national race is back almost dead even," Richard Baehr writes in the American Thinker.
"Part of the recent movement may well be attributable to the financial crisis gripping Wall Street, and the fact that for not the first time, a sensible McCain statement on the economy is being distorted by Obama and his many media flacks as evidence that the Arizona senator is out of touch," Mr. Baehr said.
"The fundamentals of the U.S. economy are strong, as McCain argued: 94 percent of workers are employed, inflation last month was 0.1 percent (the big drop in oil prices of over $55 a barrel helps, saving consumers between $20 and $30 billion each month), and GDP grew by over 3 percent last quarter. When Franklin Roosevelt took office and said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, he was applauded for his statesmanship and leadership.
"A leader in a time of crisis tries to settle the ship and restore confidence. That is what John McCain is doing, but he gets no points for it. You are supposed to walk among the unemployed, and show that you share their pain, and charge that their problems are caused by George Bush, or this year, Bush-McCain. That is what Barack Obama does, and for this, he gets the attention and approval of the punditry hacks or giants (pick one) like Joe Klein and Frank Rich.
"In terms of political momentum, when the topic being debated is national security or social issues and values, McCain benefits. When the topic is a souring economy or financial crisis, Obama wins. So this week, it is Obama's week to ride with the tide."
Borrowed lines
"Lost amid last week's controversy over whether Barack Obama had insulted Sarah Palin with his 'lipstick on a pig' reference was his inspiration for the dig. Once again the issue was whether he was borrowing material without citation," John Fund writes at www.opinionjournal.com.
"What landed Mr. Obama in hot water was this statement: 'John McCain says he's about change, too - except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics. That's just calling the same thing something different. You can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change; it's still going to stink after eight years.'
"The McCain campaign shamelessly claimed that because Ms. Palin had used a lipstick reference in her acceptance speech at the GOP convention, Mr. Obama was issuing a porcine insult of her. That was a stretch. A better riposte might have been to note that Mr. Obama seemed to be channeling a hard-left newspaper cartoonist named Tom Toles," Mr. Fund said, referring to the editorial cartoonist of The Washington Post.
"Only four days earlier, Mr. Toles drew a picture of Mr. McCain and his running mate standing outside the White House. The punch line: 'Watch out, Mr. Bush! With the exception of economic policy and energy policy and social issues and tax policy and foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments and Rove-style politics, we're coming in there to shake things up!'
"Mr. Obama has had previous problems with appropriating the words of others - such as channeling a speech on civil rights previously delivered by Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. Michael Miner of the Chicago Reader even proposed a McCain TV ad showing Mr. Obama making his 'change' argument against the background of the Toles cartoon. An announcer would quizzically ask: 'Change? Or the same thing?' Then Mr. McCain would say: 'I'm John McCain and I approve this message.'
"Such an ad, puncturing the media myth of Mr. Obama's vaunted eloquence, might have been devastating."
Gang trouble
"House Democrats passed an energy bill Tuesday night, creating a potentially embarrassing situation for the Republican senators who joined the Gang of 20, Stephen Spruiell writes at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).
"On paper at least, the House bill opens more offshore areas to oil and gas drilling than the gang's proposal does. That puts the Republicans who joined the gang to the left of Nancy Pelosi, the New York Times, and the Sierra Club on drilling," Mr. Spruiell said.
"Pelosi's bill would allow oil and gas drilling in all coastal waters more than 50 miles offshore. Make no mistake: It's still a sham energy bill, designed to give the Democrats political cover on drilling while keeping most of America's offshore reserves locked up. Over 95 percent of the oil and gas off the Pacific coast lies within the 50-mile buffer zone that Pelosi's bill would create.
"But the Gang of 20's proposal offers even less. It would set up the same 50-mile buffer, but only four states - Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas - would have the option of approving new oil and gas leases. The gang's proposal would reduce the current 125-mile buffer in the eastern Gulf of Mexico to 50 miles, but that isn't enough to allow producers to develop the Destin Dome, an enormous natural-gas field that lies 25 miles off the coast. Florida's Atlantic coast and the Pacific would remain entirely off-limits."
Biden's earmark
"Taxpayers for Common Sense is out with an analysis of earmark requests in the 2009 Defense Authorization bill," reporter Christina Bellantoni writes in a blog at www.washingtontimes.com.
"Both presidential nominees stuck to their pledge not to ask for any, but VP nominee Sen. Joe Biden has an $11.6 million earmark to 'Replace C-130 Aircraft Maintenance Shops' at the New Castle County Airport. The co-sponsor is his fellow Delaware Democrat, Tom Carper," Ms. Bellantoni said.
"Also worth noting - Top McCain supporters Joe Lieberman (I) and Lindsey Graham (R) have a bunch.
"Lieberman requested $35 million for 'Technology development for F135 engine' for beneficiary Pratt and Whitney.
"(The company's current CEO gave Lieberman $2,000 in 2004 and also contributed to his 2006 Senate re-election campaign when he was booted from the Democratic Party, but won his seat as an independent.)
"Graham has $20 million in solo requests, including a $9.9 million earmark for a 'Physical Fitness Center' at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina.
"Would McCain veto those if he were president?
"The McCain campaign did not respond to the question Wednesday afternoon."
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washington times.com.
LOAD-DATE: September 18, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 17, 2008 Wednesday
Final Edition
Tax issue atop Senate race;
Fiscal stewardship may be the main theme at the N.Va. debate
BYLINE: JEFF E. SCHAPIRO; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-1
One U.S. Senate candidate is synonymous with tax cuts; the other, tax increases.
The increasingly bitter contest between two former Virginia governors - Republican Jim Gilmore and his successor, Democrat Mark R. Warner - has focused largely on their fiscal stewardship during an era shaped by sharp swings in revenue.
The issue is expected to surface again tomorrow, in the rivals' second of three scheduled debates - this one in Northern Virginia, the state's economic and political engine. The debate will be telecast only in the Washington suburbs on News Channel 8.
"Undoubtedly, when you're talking about a Senate race that involves two former governors, the signature issue of the past 10 years - balancing the budget - will be front and center," said political analyst Stephen J. Farnsworth of George Mason University.
But a shorthand has emerged during the campaign - one that perhaps oversimplifies the fiscal claims of the candidates.
Gilmore says he eliminated the despised, locally imposed tax on personal motor vehicles, the so-called car tax. The tax - driven by the market value of cars, trucks, vans and motorcycles - still exists and continues to be collected by cities and counties.
Localities receive additional cash from the state in return for trimming the tax on the first $20,000 of a vehicle's assessed value by about 75 percent.
Gilmore's attempt at a full rollback was disrupted by economic decline and a standoff with fellow Republicans - in particular, moderates in the Virginia Senate - who considered the car-tax cut a budget-buster.
Warner, meantime, is running a television advertisement suggesting Gilmore's policies depleted more than $6 billion from Virginia's budgets.
The ballooning costs of the car-tax rollback contributed to the cash crunch. But the dot-com collapse and the aftershocks of the Sept. 11 attacks were the principal causes.
The resulting economic tailspin had the greatest impact on Northern Virginia, seat of the info-tech boom that had fueled Warner's personal fortune a decade earlier.
For both politicians, the Virginia budget was quite literally a vehicle for their ambitions. To minimize chances that their signature initiatives would be disrupted, Gilmore and Warner, with the consent of legislators, wove through the budget, respectively, tax breaks and tax increases.
But for Virginia's fast-changing electorate - perhaps more attuned to Iraq, the sagging economy and other issues driving the national campaigns - the Gilmore-Warner duel over the state budget may be ancient history, if not a mystery altogether.
"Memories are probably relatively short," said Robert D. Holsworth, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Gilmore makes no mention in his first television commercial of his record as a tax-cutter. Rather, Gilmore - apparently tying his fortunes to Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee - depicts Warner as a likely supporter in the Senate of higher federal taxes should Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, win the White House.
The advertisement is pegged to the broken promise that ultimately defined Warner's four years in Richmond: He raised taxes by $1.4 billion after repeatedly pledging not to do so.
Polls show Virginians generally supportive of the increase for public education, law enforcement and social services.
But because a tax increase seemed implausible in a state with a strong Republican tradition, the victory hastened speculation that Warner would run for president this year as a proven bipartisan coalition-builder.
Warner tested the waters but withdrew in 2006.
Both sides in the Senate campaign say the emphasis on state fiscal matters is logical, given the candidates' résumés. Gilmore was governor from 1998 until 2002, Warner from 2002 until 2006.
"The most important aspect of the job [of governor] is developing and managing the state budget," said Sen. R. Edward Houck of Spotsylvania County, the No. 2 Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. "There's no greater task."
But Del. M. Kirkland Cox of Colonial Heights, the House Republican whip and a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, summed up the external factors that influence the budget, and - by extension - its principal author: a governor.
"Governor Gilmore came in good times and left in bad," Cox said. "Governor Warner came in bad times and left in good."
Gilmore vaulted to the governorship from the attorney general's office on a pledge to eliminate the car tax.
A strong economy allowed Gilmore to put in place a multiyear phase-out, even though the annual cost of the car-tax rollback - if fully implemented - was projected to breach $1 billion, or nearly twice the $620 million he predicted.
An economic downturn and the budget-and-tax impasse with fellow Republicans in 2001, near the close of Gilmore's term, hastened Warner's rise.
Promising to work with the Republicans who then controlled the House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate, Warner - an investor who never had held elective office - vowed discipline in fiscal affairs. He also endorsed the car-tax cut and said he would not raise taxes - positions he abandoned as governor.
Warner has argued that his hand was forced by circumstances beyond his control; that the budget - when he took office in January 2002 - was in far worse shape than he had imagined several months earlier as a candidate.
The result: the biggest tax increase in Virginia history, coupled with a cap on one of the state's largest tax cuts.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: September 20, 2008
NOTES: RT-D FIRST CAMPAIGN 2008
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 17, 2008 Wednesday
Final Edition
McCain seeks economic panel; Obama dismissive;
Amid bleak financial news, Democrat calls rival's plan a 'stunt'
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-7
Republican presidential candidate John McCain yesterday blamed Wall Street's financial turmoil on unchecked corporate greed. His Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, dismissed McCain's call for a high-level commission to study the economic crisis as "passing the buck."
The presidential campaigns argued over who would be better able to deal with the kinds of financial meltdowns that roiled the markets Monday and to prevent a similar crisis in the future. McCain proposed a review on the order of the one led by the Sept. 11 commission, the bipartisan panel that studied the events leading to the 2001 terrorist attacks.
"We need a 9/11 commission," McCain said yesterday on NBC's "Today" show. "We need a commission to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it and I know we can do that and I'll do it."
Obama, campaigning in Golden, Colo., accused McCain of failing to offer concrete plans for dealing with economic issues.
"Sen. McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book. You pass the buck to a commission to study the problem," Obama said. "This isn't 9/11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I'll provide it. John McCain won't. And that's the choice for Americans in this election."
Obama continued to criticize McCain's remark Monday that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." In a television ad released yesterday, Obama's campaign asks: "How can John McCain fix our economy if he doesn't understand it's broken?"
On Monday, a few hours after the remark about strong economic fundamentals, McCain backtracked and declared the economy to be in crisis. He also said that American workers and products - the "fundamentals" he claimed he was referring to earlier - were indeed sound but faced danger from greed and corruption.
In spite of a speedy rhetorical reversal, the Arizona senator was widely criticized for offering a seemingly upbeat outlook while the stock market was on its way to a loss of 500-plus points and new troubles arose for investment banks.
New Virginia poll: A new poll has the presidential race in Virginia tied.
The Fox News/Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama each attracting 48 percent in the state. The poll a week ago showed McCain with a modest lead of 2 percentage points.
The poll of 500 likely voters was taken Sunday.
Like another poll by Survey USA, the Fox News poll showed McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate did not have an impact in Virginia. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Bid to block Palin probe: Five Republican Alaska lawmakers filed suit yesterday to end the bipartisan investigation into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of the public safety commissioner, even though McCain's vice presidential candidate once said she welcomed the probe into allegations of abuse of power.
The lawsuit called the investigation "unlawful, biased, partial and partisan." None of the lawmakers who filed the suit in Anchorage Superior Court serves on the bipartisan Legislative Council that unanimously approved the investigation.
Palin fired public safety commissioner Walt Monegan in July. Weeks later, it emerged that Palin, her husband, Todd, and several high-level staffers had contacted Monegan about state trooper Mike Wooten, who had gone through a nasty divorce from Palin's sister before Palin became governor. While Monegan says no one from the administration ever told him directly to fire Wooten, he says their repeated contacts made it clear they wanted Wooten gone.
Palin maintains that she fired Monegan over budget disagreements, not because he wouldn't dismiss her ex-brother-in-law. "Hold me accountable," said told investigators in July. McCain campaign spokesman Ed O'Callaghan now calls the investigation "tainted."
Staff writer Tyler Whitley contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 20, 2008
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Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 17, 2008 Wednesday
Tax issue atop Senate race: Fiscal stewardship may be the main theme at the N.Va. debate
BYLINE: Jeff E. Schapiro, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Sep. 17--One U.S. Senate candidate is synonymous with tax cuts; the other, tax increases.
The increasingly bitter contest between two former Virginia governors -- Republican Jim Gilmore and his successor, Democrat Mark R. Warner -- has focused largely on their fiscal stewardship during an era shaped by sharp swings in revenue.
The issue is expected to surface again tomorrow, in the rivals' second of three scheduled debates -- this one in Northern Virginia, the state's economic and political engine. The debate will be telecast only in the Washington suburbs on News Channel 8.
"Undoubtedly, when you're talking about a Senate race that involves two former governors, the signature issue of the past 10 years -- balancing the budget -- will be front and center," said political analyst Stephen J. Farnsworth of George Mason University.
But a shorthand has emerged during the campaign -- one that perhaps oversimplifies the fiscal claims of the candidates.
Gilmore says he eliminated the despised, locally imposed tax on personal motor vehicles, the socalled car tax. The tax -- driven by the market value of cars, trucks, vans and motorcycles -- still exists and continues to be collected by cities and counties.
Localities receive additional cash from the state in return for trimming the tax on the first $20,000 of a vehicle's assessed value by about 75 percent.
Gilmore's attempt at a full rollback was disrupted by economic decline and a standoff with fellow Republicans -- in particular, moderates in the Virginia Senate -- who considered the car-tax cut a budget-buster.
Warner, meantime, is running a television advertisement suggesting Gilmore's policies depleted more than $6 billion from Virginia's budgets.
The ballooning costs of the car-tax rollback contributed to the cash crunch. But the dot-com collapse and the aftershocks of the Sept. 11 attacks were the principal causes.
The resulting economic tailspin had the greatest impact on Northern Virginia, seat of the info-tech boom that had fueled Warner's personal fortune a decade earlier.
For both politicians, the Virginia budget was quite literally a vehicle for their ambitions. To minimize chances that their signature initiatives would be disrupted, Gilmore and Warner, with the consent of legislators, wove through the budget, respectively, tax breaks and tax increases.
But for Virginia's fast-changing electorate -- perhaps more attuned to Iraq, the sagging economy and other issues driving the national campaigns -- the Gilmore-Warner duel over the state budget may be ancient history, if not a mystery altogether.
"Memories are probably relatively short," said Robert D. Holsworth, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Gilmore makes no mention in his first television commercial of his record as a tax-cutter. Rather, Gilmore -- apparently tying his fortunes to Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee -- depicts Warner as a likely supporter in the Senate of higher federal taxes should Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, win the White House.
The advertisement is pegged to the broken promise that ultimately defined Warner's four years in Richmond: He raised taxes by $1.4 billion after repeatedly pledging not to do so.
Polls show Virginians generally supportive of the increase for public education, law enforcement and social services.
But because a tax increase seemed implausible in a state with a strong Republican tradition, the victory hastened speculation that Warner would run for president this year as a proven bipartisan coalition-builder.
Warner tested the waters but withdrew in 2006.
Both sides in the Senate campaign say the emphasis on state fiscal matters is logical, given the candidates' resumes. Gilmore was governor from 1998 until 2002, Warner from 2002 until 2006.
"The most important aspect of the job [of governor] is developing and managing the state budget," said Sen. R. Edward Houck of Spotsylvania County, the No. 2 Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. "There's no greater task."
But Del. M. Kirkland Cox of Colonial Heights, the House Republican whip and a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, summed up the external factors that influence the budget, and -- by extension -- its principal author: a governor.
"Governor Gilmore came in good times and left in bad," Cox said. "Governor Warner came in bad times and left in good."
Gilmore vaulted to the governorship from the attorney general's office on a pledge to eliminate the car tax.
A strong economy allowed Gilmore to put in place a multiyear phase-out, even though the annual cost of the car-tax rollback -- if fully implemented -- was projected to breach $1 billion, or nearly twice the $620 million he predicted.
An economic downturn and the budget-and-tax impasse with fellow Republicans in 2001, near the close of Gilmore's term, hastened Warner's rise.
Promising to work with the Republicans who then controlled the House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate, Warner -- an investor who never had held elective office -- vowed discipline in fiscal affairs. He also endorsed the car-tax cut and said he would not raise taxes -- positions he abandoned as governor.
Warner has argued that his hand was forced by circumstances beyond his control; that the budget -- when he took office in January 2002 -- was in far worse shape than he had imagined several months earlier as a candidate.
The result: the biggest tax increase in Virginia history, coupled with a cap on one of the state's largest tax cuts.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2008
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PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
September 17, 2008 Wednesday
Metro Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B8
Cartoons raised the level of venom on the Opinion page
Congratulations! The Roanoke Times has outdone itself. Your political cartoons of Sept. 3 and 4 had something to offend everybody ("Hail to Thee Oh Magic Orb" and "GOPea in the Pod"). Such venom seems to help sell newspapers.
I would like to ask a question that has bothered me for years. Does anyone else find it strange that American voters expect their candidates to be both paradigms of virtue and able players of the dirtiest game of all -- politics? How can one be both?
Children should not be issues, either. What should be important are the candidates' stand on what affects us all, such as the economy, our troops abroad and the health and welfare of our nation.
But wait, Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager says this election is not about issues, but about what people think about the candidates. So what we are doing is electing a homecoming king and queen on the basis of their likability.
I doubt a truly virtuous person would get anywhere near this process. If we get caught up in the ad campaigns, with their "image making," we will get what we deserve; all shadow and no substance.
Fenton Harrison Jr.
Salem
News coverage will only hurt The Glebe
Re: "The Glebe faces a crossroads," Sept. 7 front page:
First it was Botetourt County trying to put The Glebe at risk. Now you are adding fuel to the fire.
Every sentence in the article was negative. It seems as though your purpose was to destroy any chance for The Glebe to recover from its financial problems. Your negativity dampens marketing efforts, hurts the bond holders and generates unnecessary anxiety among the residents in their twilight years.
What if you had written something like this: "The Glebe, a wonderful retirement community (describe in some detail) has financial problems (detail this also) but all it needs is a few more residents. If you need a place to spend your twilight years, go take a look. You will be doing yourself a favor and will help The Glebe survive the economic downturn that all people are experiencing."
My wife and I feel blessed to be two of the very happy residents here. We will survive. How different the world would be if we all had compassion, helping and encouraging each other instead of kicking someone when they are down. How different your paper would be if you majored on positives instead of negatives.
Carl S. Cross
Daleville
A distorted view of The Glebe
The front page article on the financial problems of The Glebe was, in many respects, a biased and inaccurate commentary ("The Glebe faces a crossroads," Sept. 7).
The Glebe is in default of only $7.5 million, as $7.5 million was paid off on July 1. All the interest on the bond issue has been paid to date and there exist sufficient funds to pay interest on the bonds for the next two years.
The current real estate market is hurting The Glebe's ability to fill unoccupied units. There are 11 units committed, but are waiting for houses to be sold before residents can pay and move in.
By the way, the agreement whereby Glebe residents in financial difficulty can have their payments subsidized is in full force and effect.
"Living in the lap of luxury" is an egregious distortion of fact.
Lastly, if being a charitable institution means having to admit poor people, would you tell me how we are to choose them? By lottery? How many charitable cases are housed by Brandon Oaks or Kendall at Lexington? Or other tax-exempt senior residences?
For that matter, where does Botetourt County house its charitable cases?
Robert J. Hehre
President, Residents' Council
The Glebe
Daleville
How can the uninsured expect to survive?
On Sept. 5, the three major television networks got together many stars and people dealing with cancer to "Stand up to Cancer." This effort was to raise funds for cancer research. Cancer research is definitely important. Early detection by screening was stressed, which is the best way to fight cancer and it works.
I can attest to survival by early detection because I am a cancer survivor. I could do this because I have health insurance.
My question is: "What about the 47 million Americans who do not have health insurance?"
Mary Oefelein
Roanoke
Being a maverick isn't always a good thing
In the Sept. 1 New York Times ("A star is born?"), columnist William Kristol wrote: "The Palin pick already, as Noemie Emery wrote, 'Wipes out the image of McCain as the crotchety elder and brings back that of the fly-boy and gambler, which is much more appealing, and the genuine person.' "
"Fly-boy and gambler." Appealing? John McCain and Barack Obama have made their first presidential decisions, selecting potential vice presidents.
Obama chose Joe Biden, who, as Senate Foreign Relations chairman, has developed firsthand knowledge of foreign leaders and international flash points.
McCain chose Sarah Palin, who, in 20 months as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard, expressed no substantial views on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the global war on terrorism, Iranian nuclear ambitions, renewed Russian belligerence, a troubled Pakistan and other pressing issues.
Which candidate, Obama or McCain, has exhibited in his choice the seriousness and judgment we need in a commander in chief?
About John McCain: Democrats point to his 90 percent support of the Bush agenda, painting him as "more of the same." Republicans play up McCain the "maverick." McCain's judgment that Palin is ready for the presidency if something happens to him certainly bolsters his maverick image. Is that a good thing?
Robert Schultz
Salem
Punt 'Doonesbury' for something funny
The Roanoke Times has had a great deal of trouble managing the comics section, starting when "Doonesbury" decided to take a break. You put a comic into your funny pages that was actually funny ("Pearls Before Swine"). When "Doonesbury" returned, you decided to return to the unfunny "Doonesbury."
Fortunately, you listened to the readers and "made room" for funnies in your comic section. Now "For Better or For Worse" is changing and will do a retrospective, and again you want to eliminate what is funny in the comics.
If you really want to make room for "Pearls Before Swine" on Sunday, why don't you move "Doonesbury" to the op-ed page where it truly belongs? "Doonesbury" has been a radical-left editorial and stopped being funny more than two decades ago; please keep up with the times in Roanoke.
Mike Butler
Salem
Hoping the polls are wrong again
The latest polls show John McCain and Barack Obama nearly tied in the presidential race. I wonder about the accuracy of these polls.
A study by the National Center for Health Statistics, the results of which were released on May 14 in USA Today, concluded that "34.5 percent of people 25-29 years old lived in households with only wireless phones. For those 30-44, the rate drops to 15.5 percent. It's 2.2 percent for those 65 and over." According to that study, the percentage of homes with only wireless phones more than doubled from 2004 to late 2007.
In the 1948 election, newspapers relied on Gallup and other polls to predict that Dewey had won, resulting in the famous photograph of Harry Truman grinning while holding a Chicago Daily Tribune proclaiming "Dewey Defeats Truman." Overreliance on telephone polling was partially blamed because households equipped with telephones were likely to be populated with wealthy Republicans, leaving Democrats largely unsampled.
Although land-line customers pay a monthly fee to keep their numbers unlisted, cellphone owners must pay to have their cell numbers published, leaving them less likely to be polled. Might history repeat itself 60 years later? I'm counting on it.
Katherine R. Hix
Boones Mill
LOAD-DATE: September 18, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 17, 2008 Wednesday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Ailing economy now top campaign issue
By Terence Hunt and Glen Johnson
The Associated Press
GOLDEN, Colo.
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama traded increasingly barbed insults along with prescriptions for the ailing economy Tuesday as financial fears shoved aside lipstick on pigs and every other political issue in a blink with just weeks left in the long presidential campaign.
An ad by Democrat Obama said: "How can John McCain fix our economy if he doesn't understand it's broken?"
Republican McCain retorted: "Sen. Obama saw an economic crisis, and he's found a political opportunity. My friends, this is not a time for political opportunism; this is a time for leadership."
McCain commented as he and running mate Sarah Palin addressed a rally late Tuesday in Vienna, Ohio.
The verbal dueling showed the importance both candidates put on the issue of the economy as the continuing financial meltdown on Wall Street has driven other issues out of the news. Both campaigns now believe the candidate who manages to wrest control of the issue and gain voters' confidence could well be the next president.
Earlier in the day, McCain called for a crisis commission, while Obama laughed that off as "the oldest Washington stunt in the book."
"This isn't 9/11," Obama told a noisy crowd of more than 2,000 at the Colorado School of Mines, dismissing the idea of a need for study. "We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I'll provide it. John McCain won't."
McCain, campaigning in Florida, promised reforms, too, to expose and end the "reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed" that he said had caused the financial crisis on Wall Street."
The turmoil has shaken Americans' confidence, erased hundreds of billions of paper wealth for U.S. stockholders and led McCain and Obama to forsake other campaign focal points and scramble back to the economy as the primary concern of voters.
The presidential campaign had taken an odd turn to side issues - Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" and moose-hunting, Obama's crack about lipstick on a pig - after McCain's surprise pick of Alaska Gov. Palin as his running mate. There was a fascination with huge crowds attracted by Palin. But the collapse and merger of some of Wall Street's legendary companies forced a return to reality seven weeks before the election.
What do the voters think?
McCain and Obama now are trusted equally on the economy, with 34 percent of voters naming each as the candidate who would do a better job dealing with what is easily the country's top worry, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll conducted last week. Previously, Obama had had a solid advantage on the issue.
On Tuesday, McCain criticized the Illinois senator for taking donations from executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - the mortgage giants taken over by the government last week - and for putting former Fannie Mae Chief Executive Jim Johnson in charge of his vice presidential search. The Arizona senator also chastised Obama for missing an economic stimulus vote, even though McCain himself missed a vote - and the possibility of breaking a Senate tie - a day earlier on a broader package. Obama voted for that package.
As for Wall Street and the nation's housing woes, Obama called the crisis "the most serious financial situation in generations."
He said McCain and President Bush subscribe to the same approach: "support ideological policies that made the crisis more likely, do nothing as the crisis hits and then scramble as the whole thing collapses."
McCain declared Monday that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Then, after Obama accused him of being out of touch, he conceded the country was in an economic crisis but still said the fundamental strength of the American worker remained strong.
barbs on the economy
Said Barack Obama: "How can John McCain fix our economy if he doesn't understand it's broken?"
Retorted John McCain: "Sen. Obama saw an economic crisis, and he's found a political opportunity. My friends, this is not a time for political opportunism; this is a time for leadership."
LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 17, 2008 Wednesday
Regional Edition
Pigskin Weather Gives NBC the Ratings Edge
Sunday's Pittsburgh Steelers-vs.-Cleveland Browns square-off, and three servings of "America's Got Talent," pushed NBC to the top of the ratings heap -- the beleaguered network's sixth consecutive weekly ratings win.
Here's a look at the week's touchdowns and fumbles:
WINNERS
Football, football and football. On Monday, ESPN's "Monday Night Football" coverage of the Dallas Cowboys' 41-37 home victory over the Philadelphia Eagles clocked 18.6 million viewers -- the biggest audience in the history of ad-supported cable TV. One night earlier, NBC's Pittsburgh-at-Cleveland football game copped 17.8 million viewers to become last week's No. 1-ranked broadcast and put NBC on top for the sixth week straight. And one night before that, ABC's Saturday college football game snagged that franchise's biggest Saturday college football audience in nearly two years: 12 million fans.
Plus, last week on Monday, ESPN's first game of the prime-time night, featuring Aaron Rodgers's first regular-season game as the Green Bay Packers' starting quarterback, copped 12.5 million viewers -- which, for one week, was cable's biggest audience of '08 to date and beat everything on broadcast TV that night, including the season debut of Fox's "The Sarah Connor Chronicles."
"Saturday Night Live"/Sarah Palin. Tina Fey's dead-on portrayal of Palin, along with an appearance by Olympic record-setter Michael Phelps, combined to deliver the biggest audience to NBC's late-night show since its first original episode after the 9/11 attacks. Early stats indicate the season debut was up 64 percent (in the country's top TV markets) vs. last year's season starter, which would put its audience around 10 million viewers. Final stats are due later this week.
ABC evening news/Sarah Palin. Charlie Gibson struck ratings gold with Palin's first sit-down since becoming the GOP veep hopeful, averaging nearly 10 million viewers to beat front-runner "NBC Nightly News" by more than 2 mil.
"Late Show"/Barack Obama. CBS's David Letterman pulled off a rare win over NBC's "Tonight Show" Wednesday in the country's top TV markets with guest Dem presidential hopeful Obama.
Bill O'Reilly/Barack Obama. It all started two weeks ago, when O'Reilly's Fox News Channel show ran Part 1 of his four-part Obama interview and copped 6.6 million viewers -- the second-biggest audience in "The O'Reilly Factor" history. That ran on FNC the same night GOP presidential nominee John McCain gave his acceptance speech at his party's convention in St. Paul, Minn., setting a viewing record. Last week, on Monday, Part 2 of O'Reilly's Obama Saga averaged 4.6 million viewers -- at the exact same time Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show "Countdown" was running its Obama interview, which averaged 1.9 million. Olbermann's Obama and O'Reilly's Obama went mano a mano again the next night, Tuesday, and once again O'Reilly's Obama made mincemeat of Olbermann's Obama, 4.3 million viewers to 1.6 million, respectively. And finally, O'Reilly wrung the last drop out of his Obama on Wednesday night -- he had the Obama field to himself -- and 4.2 million tuned in.
"Coco Chanel." Shirley MacLaine's phoned-in performance nonetheless attracted 5.2 million viewers Saturday at 8, making this Lifetime biopic basic cable's No. 2-ranked original flick of the year, behind only Lifetime's "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" (5.8 mil).
"Saving Grace"/"Raising the Bar." TNT renewed both dramas for another season. Cop show "SG" averaged 4.4 million viewers this summer and winds up its second season in early '09; a 15-episode third season will kick in later next year. Meanwhile, lawyerly "RtB" is averaging 5.5 million viewers, making it ad-supported cable's top new series for '08 to date; the second season starts next year.
LOSERS
Alma Awards. The trophy show logged just 3.52 million viewers Friday at 8 after getting preempted in Los Angeles, the country's No. 2 television market: The L.A. ABC station instead covered news of the fatal Metrolink/freight train crash. In Los Angeles, the Alma Awards broadcast finally aired -- at 1:35 a.m. Sunday.
"Fringe." Maybe the most highly anticipated new-series launch of the TV season, Tuesday's unveiling of J.J. Abrams's latest series attracted only 9.1 million viewers -- about 10 million fewer than his most recent series premiere, ABC's "Lost" in '04. In fact, it's the smallest opening for a J.J. series since "Felicity," way back in September '98. On the bright side, Sunday's repeat did 75 percent of what the premiere had done among the network's target 18-to-49-year-old audience, after a repeat "Simpsons" episode, suggesting maybe there's a hit in there somewhere and the problem was the premiere's early start and lack of a lead-in show.
"The Sarah Connor Chronicles." The season debut clocked 6.3 million -- a series low for an original of that show. (This past Monday it beat that record, logging just 5.6 million viewers.)
"CMA Music Festival." ABC's Monday telecast attracted just 4.9 million viewers -- a 24 percent plunge compared with last year when it was broadcast six weeks earlier.
The week's 10 most watched programs, in order: NBC's Sunday football, CBS's "60 Minutes," ESPN's "Monday Night Football" Vikings/Packers game, ABC's Saturday football, NBC's Wednesday "America's Got Talent," NBC's Tuesday "America's Got Talent," NBC's Thursday "America's Got Talent," ESPN's "Monday Night Football" Broncos/Raiders game, NBC's Monday "Deal or No Deal" and CBS's "Two and a Half Men."
* * *
Men's Vogue posts a blurb on "Saturday Night Live's" Amy Poehler, in which it is mentioned she's leaving the show around the time of the presidential election to have her baby, after which she will star in a midseason comedy series for NBC. Never mind that all of this was already laid out by NBC execs this summer: The item got picked up yesterday by The Reporters Who Cover Television With Their Heads in the Sand, leading to such breathless reports as "Amy Poehler Moves Up SNL Exit," "Amy Poehler's . . . decided to kick 'Saturday Night Live' to the curb sooner than expected," "Hillary Clinton, oops Amy Poehler's leaving 'SNL' -- Say it isn't so" and, our fave, "No joke: Amy Poehler's leaving 'Saturday Night Live.' "
Sigh.
Back in July, NBC's programming chief, Ben Silverman, announced at the Thank God We're Working Summer TV Press Tour 2008 that his network had signed the "SNL" star to headline a new Thursday night sitcom, to be created by the guys behind the Americanization of the Britcom "The Office." The as-yet-unnamed comedy would debut in March, Silverman said. Both Silverman and "SNL" exec producer Lorne Michaels explained, in separate press-tour Q&A sessions, that they hoped Poehler would be on "SNL" through early November. "Amy will be [on the show] until her baby is born, which hopefully will be just after the election," Michaels joked during his session with TV critics and reporters, adding, "I think she'll be with us through the election."
After that, Michaels said, they expected the very pregnant Poehler to take time off to spend with her baby. And, after that, Silverman explained, NBC plans to debut her prime-time series in March.
LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Dana Edelson -- Nbc Via Reuters; Tina Fey's Palin and Amy Poehler's Clinton helped deliver a winning night for "SNL."
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The Washington Post
September 17, 2008 Wednesday
Suburban Edition
McCain Able to Skirt Limits of Federal Financing
BYLINE: Matthew Mosk; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama put his fundraising machine on display in Beverly Hills last night, tallying more than $9 million at star-studded events that included a $28,500-per-person dinner and a private concert by Barbra Streisand.
Obama's record $66 million haul in August and the money that poured into his campaign last night have helped feed the impression that the senator from Illinois will have a substantial financial advantage over Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) heading into the final weeks of the presidential campaign. But presidential strategists and campaign finance experts expressed surprise yesterday that Obama's decision to become the first presidential nominee to swear off public funding for the general election -- and McCain's decision to finance his bid with a single $84 million infusion from the federal government -- has not given Obama a clear financial edge.
"Senator Obama's advantage is not emerging as people thought," said Lawrence M. Noble, a former Federal Election Commission general counsel and an Obama supporter.
The reason has less to do with Obama's fundraising -- he has now raised $440 million, more than any presidential candidate in history -- than it does with McCain's ability to maneuver within the confines of the Watergate-era funding program, Noble said.
With backing from the Republican National Committee, McCain has taken advantage of loopholes such as "hybrid" television advertisements and joint fundraising committees that may keep him close to financial parity with Obama.
McCain's campaign team has argued privately for months that he would be able to raise enough money to be competitive in the fall, and RNC officials announced earlier this week that the party would enter the general-election period with $110 million in its various accounts. Combined with McCain's federal infusion, the Republican candidate had about $200 million at his disposal. When his total is added to funds held by the Democratic National Committee, Obama began the month with about $94 million at his disposal and the ability to continue raising as much as he can.
But publicly, Republicans have not hesitated to cast McCain as being at a disadvantage, and during an appearance yesterday in Vienna, Ohio, the GOP nominee used the occasion to note that his rival's hard-edged comments about McCain and the economy came "just before he flew off to Hollywood for a fundraiser with Barbra Streisand."
"Let me tell you, friends, there's no place I'd rather be than here with the hardworking men and women of Ohio."
While McCain had to stop raising money for his campaign committee after he accepted the GOP nomination in St. Paul, Minn., earlier this month, he has hardly been idle. On Monday night, he helped bring in more than $5 million at a Miami hotel, and his campaign has found ways to both raise money and spend it through coordinated efforts with the RNC. According to Republican sources, money is pouring in to a joint fundraising committee that can legally accept up to $70,000 from a single donor. Contributions made through McCain's Web site have quadrupled in recent days, according to party officials. The site routes potential donors to a separate page that collects money for the joint committee, distributing money to the RNC, state Republican party accounts, and a compliance fund that pays the McCain campaign's legal bills. The message on the site says, "The best way to help our campaign is to give to McCain-Palin Victory 2008."
Joint committees are not new. But the way the McCain campaign is using them, in the view of some election lawyers, makes it hard for donors to tell the difference between a contribution to the joint fund and a donation directly to McCain's campaign.
"One cute issue lurking within all of this joint fundraising is whether campaigns are getting away with having people basically give to party committees what technically is money earmarked to help a particular candidate," said Scott Thomas, a former FEC chairman.
Under FEC rules, Thomas explained, the party cannot tell donors that contributions will be used expressly to help a single candidate. That practice, called earmarking, would circumvent contribution limits and, in this case, the prohibition on McCain raising private money.
Trevor Potter, who is McCain's lawyer and a former FEC chairman, said the language soliciting for the victory fund was, in part, modeled on wording used by the 2004 Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry.
Potter objected to the assertion that money is being "earmarked" for McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, because the Web site clearly states that donations will go only to the RNC, the participating state parties and the compliance fund.
The campaign is also finding more latitude in how it can spend money during the final weeks. Under federal rules, the candidate can control only how his campaign's $84 million is used, and how $20 million in coordinated funds are spent in tandem with the RNC.
But McCain aides and the RNC are also working together on "hybrid" ads, which purport to advance the cause of his campaign and the fortunes of other Republicans. The RNC and the campaign split the cost of the ads, with the only requirement being that the ads mention, in some fashion, other elements of the GOP ticket.
Candidates from both parties first used such hybrid ads in 2004, and members of the FEC deadlocked over whether they should be allowed. Some lawyers considered the ads a way to bypass coordination rules and stretch the amount of money a presidential candidate could legally spend.
Fred Wertheimer, who heads the campaign finance reform group Democracy 21, called the use of the ads in 2004 "a scheme to evade the presidential public financing spending limits and the coordinated party spending limits," adding: "We urged the FEC in June 2007 to end this abuse, but they failed to take any action to do so."
David Mason, a former FEC chairman whose efforts to address the issue were derailed by a deadlocked commission, said, "There was a lot of discussion as to what standard should apply in terms of the content of the ad. Did you have to make an explicit appeal to the Republican ticket in a specific, identifiable way?"
The hybrid ads McCain and the RNC have aired to date offer quick, passing criticisms of Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), but there is little doubt they are intended to promote McCain, Mason said.
The hybrid ads and the use of joint fundraising committees are, in Noble's view, "the final distortion" of a presidential financing system that many have considered outdated for years. Because McCain has found other ways to both raise and spend money during the general-election race, Noble said, "it effectively means he is getting an $84 million subsidy for his campaign."
Obama advisers said this week that these efforts by McCain have only added pressure to the finance team to produce significant fundraising totals in upcoming weeks. "It's safe to say that is a fundraising record in Los Angeles," said Chad Griffin, a Hollywood political consultant. "This was billed as the last time Senator Obama was expected to be in Los Angeles before Election Day, so there was a tremendous amount of excitement."
LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Jeff Swensen -- Getty Images; Thanks to loopholes in campaign financing and spending rules, Sen. John McCain may benefit from accepting federal funds instead of being limited by the decision.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 17, 2008 Wednesday
Regional Edition
Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. "I broke my promise to always tell the truth," McCain said. Now he has broken that promise so completely that the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised.
The precise moment of McCain's abasement came, would you believe, not at some news conference or on one of the Sunday shows but on "The View," the daytime TV show created by Barbara Walters. Last week, one of the co-hosts, Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig -- an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners.
"We know that those two ads are untrue," Behar said. "They are lies."
Freeze. Close in on McCain. This was the moment. He has largely been avoiding the press. The Straight Talk Express is now just a brand, an ad slogan like "Home Cooking" or "We Will Not Be Undersold." Until then, it was possible for McCain to say that he had not really known about the ads, that the formulation "I approve this message" was just boilerplate. But he didn't.
"Actually, they are not lies," he said.
Actually, they are.
McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though.
I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat, and we will leap into a politician's lap.
Not so. What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story -- that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.
McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.
At a forum last week at Columbia University, McCain said, "But right now we have to restore trust and confidence in government." This was always the promise of John McCain, the single best reason to vote for him. America has been cheated on too many times -- the lies of Vietnam and Watergate and Iraq. So many lies. Who believes that in Afghanistan last month, only five civilians were killed by the American military in an airstrike, instead of the approximately 90 claimed by the Afghan government? Not me. I first gave up on the military during Vietnam and then again when it covered up the death of Pat Tillman, the Army Ranger and former NFL player who was killed in 2004 by friendly fire.
McCain was going to fix all that. He was going to look the American people in the eyes and say, not me. I will not lie to you. I am John McCain, son and grandson of admirals. I tell the truth.
But Joy Behar knew better. And so McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can -- as he did in South Carolina -- renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won't work. Karl Marx got one thing right -- what he said about history repeating itself. Once is tragedy, a second time is farce. John McCain is both.
cohenr@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2008
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The Washington Post
September 17, 2008 Wednesday
Regional Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A19
Seldom has there been a larger contrast between the style of a candidate and the strategy of his campaign.
Barack Obama is cool, firm and permanently unruffled. It is precisely this quality of steadiness that has made him seem a credible prospective president with the thinnest of résumés.
But Obama's campaign is rootless, reactive and panicky. At every stage since securing the nomination, it has seemed fearful of missteps and unsure of its own organizing principle. So it has invariably adopted the Democratic conventional wisdom of the moment.
Obama's first major decision was his running mate. He could have reinforced a message of change and moderation with a Democratic governor who wins in a Republican state, or reached for history by selecting Hillary Clinton. But his choice came soon after Russia invaded Georgia, and the conventional wisdom demanded an old hand who knew his way around Tbilisi. When the Georgia crisis faded, Obama was left with a partisan, undisciplined, congressional liberal at his side. This has served to undermine Obama's message of change -- and has allowed Sarah Palin to pilfer a portion of that appeal.
Obama's second decision concerned the tone and content of his convention. Here the Democratic conventional wisdom was nearly unanimous. Obama should shelve his highfalutin rhetoric and talk like a real Democrat. Go after McCain. Talk about "bread and butter" issues -- code words for class-warfare attacks on consumers of blinis and caviar.
Obama took this advice to the letter -- at the cost of his political identity. In his Denver speech, it seemed that every American home was on the auction block, every car stalled for lack of gasoline, every credit card bill past due, every worker treated like a Russian serf. And John McCain? He was out of touch, with flawed "judgment." His life devoted to serving oil companies and big corporations. And, by the way, he didn't have the courage to follow Osama bin Laden "to the cave where he lives." In obedience to the best Democratic advice, Obama managed to be conventional, bitter and graceless.
Now Obama has made his third major campaign decision -- to finally get really tough on McCain. In response to attacks and dropping polls, the Democratic wisdom is once again nearly uniform: Democrats lose because they are not vicious enough. And once again, the Obama campaign has taken this advice without hesitation. "We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks, and we will take the fight to him," says Obama's campaign manager.
Obama feels provoked -- and he has been. There is no evidence that Obama supported explicit sex education for kindergarteners, as a McCain ad implied. Having already accused McCain of being a cowardly corporate tool who is disconnected from reality, escalation is not an easy task for Obama. But he has managed. In one recent commercial, McCain is clearly mocked for his age -- compared to a disco ball and a 10-pound cellphone. Another ad uses the word "dishonorable" next to a photo of McCain -- an attack from a candidate who has little practical familiarity with the cost of honor.
Who is hurt most by this race to the bottom? McCain, by the evidence of his own convention, wants to be a viewed as a fighter -- which a fight does little to undermine. Obama was introduced to America as a different and better kind of politician -- an image now in tatters.
Even worse for Obama, all these shifts to catch the prevailing winds confirm the most serious concerns about his political character. As a senator, he has almost never opposed the ideological consensus of his party. (The ethics reform he often cites as his profile in courage eventually passed the Senate 96 to 2.) And now as a presidential candidate, Obama has run his campaign with all the constancy of a skittish sailboat on an erratic ocean.
Here is a different strategy. Obama could attempt to "beat back the politics of fear, and doubt, and cynicism." He could try to build a coalition that "stretches through red states and blue states." He could reject "the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up."
The candidate who said those words the night he won the Iowa caucuses did pretty well. But whatever the outcome of this presidential election, that candidate is no longer in the race.
michaelgerson@cfr.org
LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2008
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September 17, 2008 Wednesday
Met 2 Edition
GOP Rally Reaches Out To Minorities
BYLINE: Amy Gardner; Washington Post Staff Writer
Northern Virginia Republicans, realizing they need to improve their appeal among the region's large ethnic population, will stage a "unity" rally Saturday that they say will draw 1,000 people.
Organizers said the annual rally, which has grown in recent years, is particularly significant this year because ethnic minorities represent an increasingly powerful voting bloc that will help decide which presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain, wins the state Nov. 4.
But Democrats say the rally does not signify a surge in immigrant support for Republicans, and even GOP organizers acknowledged that evidence of a broader coalition of ethnic Republicans is slim.
"We confront a perception problem, which we have to fight every day -- that the Republican Party is not for working people or immigrants," said Jim Hyland, a rally organizer and chairman of the Fairfax County Republican Committee. "The only way that we can battle that is to take the fight directly to the people in these communities, spread the word that the Republican Party represents more of their views than the Democratic Party."
Hyland said he expects as many as 1,000 supporters to turn out for the event at Edison High School, where former senator George Allen and Reps. Tom Davis and Frank R. Wolf are expected to speak. Former Virginia governor James S. Gilmore III is planning to attend, as is a widely known surrogate from McCain's campaign, organizers said.
Republicans have boosted their efforts to reach out to immigrant communities that traditionally have voted Democratic. To bolster participation at the rally, they are targeting Korean, Arab, Chinese, Taiwanese and Latin American communities across the county through phone banks and door-to-door visits.
County Republicans also have translated McCain's education policies into Korean and Spanish, and workers will distribute the information at the rally. They are also operating Korean-language phone banks to invite voters to the rally. And to appeal to small-business owners in immigrant communities, organizers are talking about low taxes, less regulation and encouragement of entrepreneurialism. They are also rallying around family values and social conservatism in the hope that those issues will connect with voters.
"We all have our own little enclaves, small enclaves, and no unified voice," said Ken Feng, 59, a Chinese American from Herndon who is active in Republican politics and focusing on Chinese turnout for the rally. "We are trying to gather all the ethnic groups together so we can have a unified voice for our candidates."
Two events last week had sparse turnout, offering little evidence that the voice is growing stronger. To announce the weekend rally, county Republicans held a news briefing at which organizers representing seven ethnic groups explained their efforts to boost minority turnout. But all were steadfast Republican volunteers -- not examples of newly minted Republican voters.
Later, the Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Virginia, Latinas for McCain, Hispanic Veterans for McCain and local Hispanic leaders gathered to endorse McCain for president.
About 15 people participated in the event, which was held at the Tower Club in Tysons Corner -- and not in one of Fairfax's commercial or residential enclaves, such as Annandale or Baileys Crossroads, known for their concentrations of ethnic minorities.
The events, Democrats said, say more about Republican nervousness than the party's chance for success among minorities. Virginia is a presidential battleground state for the first time in 44 years, prompting the candidates to devote more time and energy to the area. In particular, vote-rich Northern Virginia will be crucial in deciding who wins.
"This happens almost every election cycle," said Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. He is seeking the congressional seat held by Davis, who is retiring.
"Prominent Republican minority figures come out and say, 'We're a diverse party.' But you know, if you looked at the convention in St. Paul, the numbers were appallingly low. If you looked at the McCain rally in Fairfax, it was an overwhelmingly white event. Every election cycle they do this, and every election cycle, minorities vote for Democrats in large numbers."
Some of the county's largest minority enclaves are also some of the strongest performers for Democratic candidates.
The population of the county's Mason District, for example, including Annandale, Baileys, Willston and Lincolnia, is mostly minority -- and it delivered some of the widest margins for Connolly last year, when he was reelected chairman; for Sen. Jim Webb (D) in 2006; and for Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) in 2005.
LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Don Petersen -- Associated Press; Former senator George Allen is one of the Republicans scheduled to speak to voters at a weekend rally in Fairfax County.
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The Washington Post
September 17, 2008 Wednesday
Met 2 Edition
McCain Embraces Regulation After Many Years of Opposition
BYLINE: Michael D. Shear; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
A decade ago, Sen. John McCain embraced legislation to broadly deregulate the banking and insurance industries, helping to sweep aside a thicket of rules established over decades in favor of a less restricted financial marketplace that proponents said would result in greater economic growth.
Now, as the Bush administration scrambles to prevent the collapse of the American International Group (AIG), the nation's largest insurance company, and stabilize a tumultuous Wall Street, the Republican presidential nominee is scrambling to recast himself as a champion of regulation to end "reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed" on Wall Street.
"Government has a clear responsibility to act in defense of the public interest, and that's exactly what I intend to do," a fiery McCain said at a rally in Tampa yesterday. "In my administration, we're going to hold people on Wall Street responsible. And we're going to enact and enforce reforms to make sure that these outrages never happen in the first place."
McCain hopes to tap into anger among voters who are looking for someone to blame for the economic meltdown that threatens their home values, bank accounts and 401(k) plans. But his past support of congressional deregulation efforts and his arguments against "government interference" in the free market by federal, state and local officials have given Sen. Barack Obama an opening to press the advantage Democrats traditionally have in times of economic trouble.
In 2002, McCain introduced a bill to deregulate the broadband Internet market, warning that "the potential for government interference with market forces is not limited to federal regulation." Three years earlier, McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country's financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies.
That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments.
McCain now condemns the executives at those companies for pursuing the ambitions that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act made possible, saying that "in an endless quest for easy money, they dreamed up investment schemes that they themselves don't even understand."
He said the misconduct was aided by "casual oversight by regulatory agencies in Washington," where he said oversight is "scattered, unfocused and ineffective."
"They haven't been doing their job right," McCain said yesterday, "or else we wouldn't have these massive problems on Wall Street, and that's a fact. At their worst, they've been caught up in Washington turf wars instead of working together to protect investors and the public interest."
Yesterday, Obama seized on what he called McCain's "newfound support for regulation" and accused his rival of backing "a broken system in Washington that is breaking the American economy."
In a speech in Golden, Colo., Obama blamed the economic crisis on an "economic philosophy" that he said McCain and President Bush supported blindly.
"John McCain has spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers," he told a crowd of about 2,100 at the Colorado School of Mines. "So let's be clear: What we've seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed."
Obama released a TV ad that mocks McCain for saying on Monday that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" and asks: "How can John McCain fix our economy if he doesn't understand it's broken?"
He also poked fun at McCain for proposing a commission to examine the crisis, calling that "the oldest Washington stunt in the book."
"This isn't 9/11. We know how we got into this mess," Obama said. "What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I'll provide it, John McCain won't, and that's the choice for the American people in this election."
Obama reiterated his economic proposals: a stimulus plan and protections for struggling homeowners. Over the long term, he proposes enhancing regulations of the financial markets, including creating an advisory panel to regularly update the president.
McCain's proposed changes for the system were equally vague.
"There will be constant access to the books and accounts of our banks and other financial institutions," he said. "By law, it will reduce the debt and risk that any bank can take on. And above all, I promise reforms to prevent the kind of wild speculation that can put our markets at risk, and has already inflicted such enormous damage across our economy."
McCain offered his own TV ad promising to "reform Wall Street" and pass "new rules for fairness and honesty," adding: "I won't tolerate a system that puts you and your family at risk. Your savings, your jobs . . . I'll keep them safe," the ad says.
He did not describe how he would bring greater transparency to the process. His senior policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, told reporters earlier in the day that there was no need for McCain to be specific right now.
"There's no magic solutions, and I don't think it's imperative at this moment to write down what the plan should be," he said. "The real issue here is a leadership issue.''
McCain stumbled Monday when the financial crisis peaked, first saying the "fundamentals" of the economy were strong. After being hammered by Obama and the Democrats -- "What economy is he talking about?" Obama asked -- he said that he knows the economy is in crisis, but that the basis of the American economy, the American worker, is strong.
By Tuesday, McCain had retooled the message further, and tried to wrap the financial meltdown into his campaign's greater message about changing "the way Washington does business."
McCain has not always opposed government regulation. He supported efforts to allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. And he pushed to strengthen the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements, which were put in place after the accounting scandals involving Enron and other major firms.
But he has usually reverted to the role of an unabashed deregulator. In 2007, he told a group of bloggers on a conference call that he regretted his vote on the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, which has been castigated by many executives as too heavy-handed.
In the 1990s, he backed an unsuccessful effort to create a moratorium on all new government regulation. And in 1996, he was one of only five senators to oppose a comprehensive telecommunications act, saying it did not go far enough in deregulating the industry.
As chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee for more than a decade, McCain did not have direct oversight of the financial sector. But he sat at the center of arguments between telephone, cable and satellite companies, almost always pressing for more competition.
"I'm always for less regulation," he told the Wall Street Journal in March. He added: "I'd like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated."
Staff writers Robert Barnes and Anne E. Kornblut and political researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Ed Andrieski -- Associated Press; "John McCain has spent decades . . . supporting financial institutions instead of their customers," Sen. Barack Obama said in Golden, Colo.
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September 17, 2008 Wednesday
Ads from 527s aim to divide, conquer
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Initially pushed to the sidelines by the presidential nominees, independent political groups are readying a 24/7 barrage of attack ads designed to influence Americans' choices at the ballot box in November.
The tax-exempt political groups known as 527s will use negative ads to remind voters about Sen. Barack Obama's controversial former pastor, and to suggest that Sen. John McCain's temperament makes him a frightening choice to have his "finger near the red button."
Both presidential hopefuls once derided these independent groups - named for their section of the tax code and limited to few campaign-finance restrictions - and so they remained mostly dormant for months.
But as the campaign heats up, 527s and other political action committees from across the political spectrum are planning major pushes to influence voters in the final six weeks of the campaign.
"We have to spread the truth about McCain ourselves because it's clear the corporate media won't," reads the description on a YouTube ad from BraveNewPac. In capital letters, it adds, "Now. Fast. Furious. Everywhere."
The group, an offshoot of liberal filmmaker Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films, has paid for a television spot featuring a former prisoner of war portraying Mr. McCain as emotionally disturbed. Philip Butler says he knows Mr. McCain and adds that the prisoner of war experience is "not a good prerequisite" for the presidency.
"He was well known as a very volatile guy, and he would blow up and go off like a Roman candle," says Mr. Butler, who also was imprisoned in Vietnam. "John McCain is not somebody that I would like to see with his finger near the red button."
Meanwhile, some people involved with the group that damaged Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 - the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - have targeted Mr. Obama under the name American Issues Project.
"I don't think the public cares how you characterize who is making an ad or who is behind it. I think they care about the substance of the ad," said Ed Martin, a St. Louis lawyer who has long worked on behalf of Republicans.
"Do you really know enough about what this guy is about?" he said of the Illinois Democrat. "What I know about his background is worrisome."
AIP is not a 527, and Mr. Martin insists it will remain solvent after the Nov. 4 election to continue issue advocacy.
He said the group formed to combat the "hundreds of millions" that left-leaning groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice America and others would inevitably spend on the election, along with Mr. Obama's decision to opt out of the public financing system that forces campaigns to abide by spending limits.
However, 527s have been less active than during the 2004 election cycle.
AIP has spent nearly $3 million to run one ad questioning Mr. Obama's past association with William Ayers, a member of the domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground. The Obama campaign ran a response ad to combat the spot in the swing states such as Ohio.
The Ayers ad was financed by a Texas billionaire who also funded the Swift Boat group. Former White House adviser Karl Rove has been encouraging major Republican donors to fund independent groups.
Mr. McCain came to Mr. Kerry's defense four years ago, saying the Swift Boat campaign was "dishonest and dishonorable" and a "cheap stunt."
Independent group Vets for Freedom on Wednesday will announce a $400,000 ad campaign attacking Mr. Obama and praising the troop surge credited with bringing more stability to Iraq. The ad stacks up video clips of Gen. David H. Petraeus, architect of the Iraq troop surge, against clips of Mr. Obama saying the surge was failing. Mr. Obama has since acknowledged that the surge succeeded militarily.
MoveOn.org Political Action has run several ads critical of Mr. McCain's position on the war and Tuesday released a spot using the Arizona Republican's signature greeting of "my friends" against him, saying his friends are the lobbyists who work for his campaign. It tells viewers, "John McCain is no friend of yours."
VoteVets, which has an active campaign for congressional candidates, has produced a Web ad targeting Mr. McCain titled "McCain Means the Draft." It uses his own responses from town-hall forums to suggest he would reinstate a military draft.
California-based Our Country Deserves Better PAC, funded and organized by Republicans, has crafted a 60-second spot making broad and inaccurate assertions about Mr. Obama's stance on diplomacy.
"He says he'll play nicey-nice with Islamic militants who want to kill Americans both here at home and abroad," says Deborah Johns, the mother of a Marine who has served in Iraq.
Another ad mentions the "hateful sermons" from his former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright and questions Mr. Obama's patriotism.
A new 527 called Born Alive Truth is running an ad in New Mexico and Ohio featuring Gianna Jessen, who was born after a failed abortion.
"If Barack Obama had his way I would not be here," she says in the ad, which cites his votes on a bill in the Illinois Senate.
A Planned Parenthood action fund ad defends Mr. Obama and says, "John McCain is twisting the facts." It suggests "after 26 years in Washington" he is nothing more than "another politician who will say anything to get elected."
Though the majority of the ads running are against Mr. Obama, the McCain campaign called the BraveNewPac ad "vile" and said it was released "apparently at the behest of the Obama campaign."
McCain aides cited an Atlantic blog report that unnamed Obama aides had "quietly" signaled to 527 groups that they could use their activity to attack the Republican.
But senior Obama adviser Robert Gibbs said on MSNBC Monday, "We don't want people to participate in 527s."
"In fact, many 527s on the Democratic side folded because we asked people not to participate in that type of campaign, but instead participate in our campaign," he said.
One of those groups is California-based PowerPAC, whose actions Mr. Obama condemned during the primary season.
The group in August released a positive spot to run in New Mexico and target Hispanic voters. The ad states, "Barack Obama believes it shouldn't matter if you look different," and portrays him as "a new kind of leader" who played by the rules to achieve his dream.
Labor unions also have been spending heavily on the race on behalf of Mr. Obama and against Mr. McCain.
For example, the AFL-CIO has approved a political budget of $53 million and its affiliated unions are expected to spend an additional $200 million on political activities. The National Education Association is expected to spend more than $40 million and the Service Employees International Union has designated $100 million.
* Stephen Dinan and Jeffrey Birnbaum contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: Documentary liberal filmmaker Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films has paid for a TV spot featuring a former prisoner of war portraying Sen. John McCain as emotionally disturbed. [Photo by Associated Press]
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September 17, 2008 Wednesday
McCain, Obama confront Wall Street turmoil;
Candidates debate ways to fight 'greed'
BYLINE: By Valerie Richardson and S.A. Miller, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain called Tuesday for a commission to determine how Wall Street got suckered by "greed and corruption," but his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, said the country needs action, not studies that would allow the government to duck its responsibilities.
As Wall Street continued to reel from a day of turmoil in the financial sector, the presidential candidates tried to capitalize by expressing outrage over "greed" and by demonstrating that they are in touch with anxious Americans.
"This isn't 9/11. We know how we got in this mess. What we need is leadership to get us out," Mr. Obama told a standing-room-only crowd at the Colorado School of Mines, rejecting Mr. McCain's call for a Sept. 11-style commission to examine economic failings.
A day after Mr. McCain was assailed for saying the economy remains fundamentally strong for American workers, the senator from Arizona frequently used the word "crisis" and peppered his campaign speeches, television appearances and a new ad with a stark populist message blaming greedy investors and companies.
"We are going to put an end to the reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed that have caused a crisis on Wall Street," he said while campaigning in Tampa, Fla.
Joined in Vienna, Ohio, by his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, he said government should prevent chief executives from bailing out with general severance packages when their companies fail, and called for stiffer regulatory oversight of Wall Street's books and investment models. Those ideas break with the core Republican tenet that free markets work best with limited regulation.
"Government has a clear responsibility to act in defense of the public interest and that's what I intend to do," he said. "In our administration we are going to hold the people of Wall Street responsible."
The political exchanges threatened to force the campaign conversation back to serious policy ground after days of coverage saturated with Mrs. Palin's lipstick, glasses and prowess as a moose hunter.
Mr. McCain said he had warned two years ago about a collapse of government-backed mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He pointed to a Senate bill he co-sponsored that would have revamped the system.
Mr. Obama said the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the problems of other financial giants are results of Republican tax-cutting policies.
"What we've seen in the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed," Mr. Obama said.
He repeated his call for $50 billion in new spending on infrastructure, which he said would create 1 million jobs. He also called for a "universal homeowners tax cut" of 10 percent that would help an estimated 10 million households, and said "it's time to get serious about regulatory oversight" of the financial markets.
* S.A. Miller reported from Ohio. Stephen Dinan contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2008
GRAPHIC: Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain blames Wall Street's "unbridled greed" while Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama puts the onus on Republican tax policies as the candidates focused Tuesday on market woes. [2 Photos by Associated Press]
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Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 16, 2008 Tuesday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Obama didn't call Palin a pig, McCain now says
The Associated Press
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.
Did Sen. Barack Obama really call Gov. Sarah Palin a pig, as an ad by Sen. John McCain leads people to believe?
"No," McCain said Monday.
The Republican presidential nominee defended the ad anyway, saying Obama "chooses his words very carefully." The implication: Obama was slyly up to something when he said McCain's call for change in Washington is "lipstick on a pig," days after Palin made a lipstick joke at the Republican convention.
"He's very eloquent," McCain told The Associated Press and Florida newspapers in an interview, and "it was the wrong thing to say."
A day earlier, hard-nosed Republican tactician Karl Rove, a former adviser to President Bush, said some of McCain's ads were not truthful and both sides should cool the attacks.
McCain said of Obama's comment: "I didn't like it. So we responded. I think the American people will judge as to whether he and others have treated Gov . Palin fairly or not." But he said he won't let attacks go unanswered.
LOAD-DATE: September 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: The charge was aired in a McCain ad in defense of his running mate, Sarah Palin.
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 16, 2008 Tuesday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Candidates seek edge with voters on issue of economy
By Liz Sidoti
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON
With chaos rocking financial markets, John McCain assailed "greed and corruption" on Wall Street and promised to clean it up, while Barack Obama blamed White House policies and said his opponent would deliver only more of the same.
The presidential candidates struggled Monday to seize control of the issue voters say is most important - the economy - with Republicans and Democrats alike saying the man who succeeds may well win the election.
However, in a dizzying day of speeches and statements, neither White House hopeful offered any fresh ideas for turning things around. Instead each relied on the same vague, though vastly different, pitches he has sounded over the past few months for fixing what ails the country.
And they didn't emphasize that they are part of the Congress that has done little to head off the crisis. McCain is a four-term Arizona senator, Obama a first-termer from Illinois.
Bemoaning "the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression," Democrat Obama faulted Republican McCain's domestic policy agenda as the same as President Bush's - "one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises."
McCain declared in a new TV ad, "Our economy is in crisis. Only proven reformers John McCain and Sarah Palin can fix it" - though he also told voters in Jacksonville, Fla., "The fundamentals of our economy are strong."
While presidents - and candidates of the party occupying the White House - often take credit for good economies and try to avoid blame for bad ones, financial crises nearly always have multiple causes.
Home loans became more affordable a few years ago when the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low. Politicians of all stripes encouraged home ownership. But lightly regulated financial outfits began slicing and dicing the resulting mortgages into securities and selling them to investors.
Eventually, it all began collapsing, prices dropped, some people started losing their homes and Wall Street went into a spin.
This is the backdrop with some seven weeks left in the campaign, and both Obama and McCain are trying to find a message that resonates with anxious voters who are fretting about their retirement nest eggs, home mortgages and job security.
As different as their policies are, they were united in their message to voters: It's not your fault.
Courting working-class voters who gave him grief in the Democratic primary, Obama sounded an I-feel-your-pain note.
Obama lamented Republican policies over eight years that he said "encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans" and said: "Instead of prosperity trickling down, the pain has trickled up - from the struggles of hardworking Americans on Main Street to the largest firms of Wall Street."
McCain's words were sympathetic as well.
"America is in a crisis today," he said - then added: "The economic crisis is not the fault of the American people. Our workers are the most innovative, the hardest working, the best skilled, the most productive, the most competitive in the world. ... But they are being threatened today ... because of greed and corruption that some engaged in on Wall Street and we have got to fix it."
the economy
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama are trying to find a message that resonates with anxious voters who are fretting about their retirement nest eggs, home mortgages and job security.
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The Washington Post
September 16, 2008 Tuesday
Met 2 Edition
Economy Becomes New Proving Ground For McCain, Obama
BYLINE: Dan Balz and Robert Barnes; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Yesterday's meltdown on Wall Street brought the economy roaring back to the center of the presidential campaign, and the question for the final seven weeks of the general-election campaign is whether Barack Obama or John McCain can convince voters that he is capable of leading the country out of the morass.
McCain faces the bigger challenge. As the Republican nominee, he must answer for what has happened on President Bush's watch and offer a plausible explanation for why his conservative administration would be genuinely different. Obama already is attacking him as ill-equipped to deal with the financial crisis and has aggressively moved to tie a future McCain administration to a lobbyist-dominated Washington culture.
Obama's challenge is different. He begins with the reality that Democrats are seen as the party that is more trusted to deal with the economy. Despite that, he has struggled through much of the year to develop a compelling economic message. Where he remains suspect is on the strength of his leadership and his ability to connect with working- and middle-class voters.
McCain is playing on those qualms in his counterattacks.
Even before yesterday's bad news, the economy was the top issue on voters' minds. But over the past two weeks, other issues -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin being the most obvious -- have dominated the political discussion. That phase of the campaign may have ended.
The debate will now probably shift back to fundamentals. Whom will voters trust to lead the country out of this problem and whom do they believe has a credible plan for doing so? What matters now is how McCain and Obama respond to the latest evidence of an economy still struggling to overcome the damage inflicted by the real estate and home mortgage crises.
Neither has truly won the confidence of voters, and yesterday neither offered fresh ideas about how to deal with what has become a mess of huge proportions.
By McCain's own admission, the economy is not his natural turf, and his comments yesterday seemed less than sure-footed. At his first event of the day, he acknowledged that the economy is in difficult straits and promised to shake up Washington and Wall Street. But he also said he still thinks that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."
The Obama campaign pounced on those words, saying they showed McCain to be "disturbingly out of touch" with the reality that everyday Americans face. At a rally in Grand Junction, Colo., Obama wondered: "What economy are you talking about?" The comments also seemed at odds with McCain's new television commercial that declares an economic crisis.
By the time the Republican nominee had made the short flight to Orlando for a town hall meeting, his campaign had e-mailed reporters new remarks he would deliver. They seemed a 180-degree turn. If McCain's earlier comments had seemed designed to reassure, his new ones were dire. "The American economy is in a crisis -- in a crisis," he repeated.
Obama has been under pressure from Democrats, nervous about McCain's post-convention rise in the polls, to refocus his campaign message on the economy. Campaigning in Colorado, he described the recent series of events as "the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression" and accused Washington and Wall Street of failures.
"I certainly don't fault Senator McCain for these problems," he said. "But I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. It's the same philosophy we've had for the last eight years -- one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else."
Obama accused McCain of embracing a philosophy that has opposed tougher regulations -- "one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises." McCain's campaign accused Obama of embracing "pessimism, defeatism and weakness" in questioning the Republican's praise of the ingenuity and vitality of American workers and charged that an Obama administration would mean higher taxes and burdensome regulation just when the economy can least afford it.
"Everything that's been happening in the last week and a half reminds voters what's at stake in this election," Democratic pollster Peter Hart said. "Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac -- they all may sound like arcane terminology to the voters. But in the end they know it's about housing, about the ability to invest in new ideas, and it's about holding on to jobs."
As a result, voters will be looking for more than accusations and boilerplate from the two nominees. "How the candidates respond to this will be critical to Americans' assessment of whether they're ready for the job," Republican pollster Neil Newhouse said in an e-mail. "In the big picture of this campaign, this issue is a 'jump ball.' "
That the issue of the economy is anywhere close to even between the candidates is remarkable. Given that Republicans have controlled the White House for the past eight years and that the normal advantage Democrats hold as the party best able to handle the economy, Obama ought to have a clear edge over McCain.
The Democratic nominee does score higher than his rival on the economy, but not by as much as he should, which is why Democratic strategists have been urging his campaign to refocus its message on the economy and to do so more forcefully.
In a memo issued over the weekend, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg concluded that by emphasizing a reform message aimed at shaking up Washington, McCain and Palin had managed to draw even with Obama on who would stand up to special interests in Washington, narrow the gap between the two tickets on the economy and diminish the importance of economic issues as the most significant driver of voters' decisions.
Greenberg predicted in a telephone interview that the economy "will soar as a voting issue" because of the huge shocks that have hit Wall Street. "It will force the discussion to a very serious thing -- not that Palin is frivolous -- but I think now people want to know where McCain and Obama are going to take the country."
The challenge for McCain and Obama is to help people understand what has happened. The shocks have come from many directions this year. The mortgage crisis and the wave of foreclosures hit from one direction. Rising world oil prices -- and with them higher prices at the gas pump and for the coming winter's supply of home heating oil -- seemingly came from another.
Added to that is the collapse of financial giants, beginning with the bailout of Bear Stearns and continuing through Sunday's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers. These financial market meltdowns have both symbolic and real effects on average Americans, even if they cannot understand exactly what has happened or why.
President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are on the front lines of this crisis now, but come January, McCain or Obama will be in charge. They have less than 50 days to demonstrate they're capable of dealing with it.
Howard Wolfson, who was communications director for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Democratic primary campaign, described the financial meltdown as a "3 a.m. moment" for Wall Street. "Will either candidate offer an explanation of the problem and a plan to fix it that will reassure voters and break through the din?" he asked.
After all the uproar and chatter of the past two weeks, the campaign may be heading back to fundamentals.
Barnes, traveling with McCain, reported from Florida. Michael D. Shear in Washington contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Gerardo Mora -- Getty Images; Sen. John McCain discusses the economy during a visit to the Asociación Borinqueña de Florida Central in Orlando.
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The Washington Post
September 16, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
Obama Ad on Lobbying Turns Past Into Present
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
"John McCain's chief adviser lobbies for oil companies, even from Russia and China. His campaign manager lobbies for corporations outsourcing American jobs."
Barack Obama "It's Over" television ad
The McCain campaign has taken a lot of heat from the fact-checking community over the last week for deceptive, at times dishonest, campaign ads. But the Obama campaign is hardly immune from criticism about misleading advertising. A good example: a couple of ads that slam the Republican nominee for employing lobbyists while insisting that "it's over" for the special interests.
THE FACTS
Obama's "It's Over" ad flashes a photograph of McCain adviser Charlie Black across the screen with a voice-over claiming that he "lobbies for oil companies, even from Russia and China." Next up is a photograph of campaign manager Rick Davis with the claim that he "lobbies for corporations outsourcing American jobs."
Asked to provide support for these claims, the Obama campaign pointed to Senate records showing that Black had lobbied for a Chinese state-owned oil company, CNOOC, between July and August 2005. Senate filings show that Black lobbied for the Russian oil company Yukos in 2004. It also cited a 2004 newspaper report stating that Davis had lobbied for a telecommunications company called SBC that outsourced some jobs to India.
Excuse me, but verb tenses matter.
"Lobbies" and "lobbied" or "has lobbied" carry different meanings. I took McCain to task in May when he claimed that "we have drawn down to pre-surge levels" in Iraq. It turned out that he was speaking prematurely: The full drawdown was still a couple of months away. The McCain campaign offered the "verb tense defense" to justify the senator's claim, ridiculing the distinction between "have" and "will" as a "matter of semantics."
It is fair for the Obama campaign to draw attention to the fact that McCain is surrounded by advisers who "have lobbied" for special interests in the past. (The McCain camp points out that some of Obama's advisers are also former lobbyists.) Use of the present tense is out of bounds, however.
The McCain campaign, in the person of former lobbyist Rick Davis, issued a blanket directive on May 15 stating that "no person working for the campaign may be a registered lobbyist or foreign agent, or receive compensation for any such activity." The directive was a belated response to criticism on the role played by lobbyists, such as Black, in the campaign. Black told The Washington Post in February that he was conducting his lobbying business by phone from the McCain campaign bus, the famous "Straight Talk Express."
But that was then. Black stepped down from his position at the lobbying firm BKSH and Associates in March.
THE PINOCCHIO TEST
I awarded the McCain campaign three Pinocchios for mixing up its verb tenses over the Iraq surge in May. Consistency demands the same verdict for Barack Obama.
THREE PINOCCHIOS: Significant factual errors
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September 16, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
THE AD
John McCain: I will not take the low road to the highest office in this land.
Narrator: What's happened to John McCain? He's running the sleaziest ads ever. Truly vile. Dishonest smears that he repeats even after it's been exposed as a lie. The truth be damned. A disgraceful, dishonorable campaign. After voting with Bush 90 percent of the time, proposing the same disastrous economic policies. It seems deception is all he has left.
ANALYSIS
This Barack Obama commercial relies almost entirely on harsh media criticism of John McCain's ads, and most of the citations are from liberal sources, such as Time columnist Joe Klein, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, Washington Monthly blogger Steve Benen and the New Republic. This is a classic technique of using third-party citations to validate a candidate's argument. And while a casual viewer might get the impression that Time and The Post are running news stories calling McCain's ads sleazy and disgraceful, the columnists' last names are shown in small type.
Recent media accounts have said that McCain is using more frequent and serious falsehoods than the Illinois senator, but fact-check efforts have found occasional distortions in Obama ads, as well.
This is the second spot in less than a week in which Obama has gone aggressively negative against McCain. A previous ad said McCain is out of touch and can't even use a computer, despite the fact that his old war injuries make it difficult for him to type for any length of time.
This commercial attempts to use the criticism of McCain's advertising to raise questions about his policy proposals. It is true that the Arizona senator has voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time and supports some of the same economic policies, such as extending the president's tax cuts. But McCain has differed on some Bush policies, such as supporting greater financial regulation.
Whether this kind of attack will move votes is open to question, since voters have grown accustomed to candidates accusing each other of making false claims.
Video of this ad is at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
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September 16, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
TROOPER PROBE
Palin 'Unlikely' to Talk to Prosecutor
ANCHORAGE -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is unlikely to meet with a special prosecutor looking into whether she or other state officials improperly pushed to punish a trooper, a spokesman for John McCain's presidential campaign announced Monday.
Since Palin was named McCain's running mate, the campaign has dismissed the state legislature's investigation of her dismissal of the state's director of public safety, saying that Democrats are exploiting the probe for political gain.
McCain campaign spokesman Ed O'Callaghan said that Palin is "unlikely to cooperate" with the investigation, which he called "tainted."
Palin's husband, Todd, was subpoenaed in the probe last week. O'Callaghan said he did not know whether Todd Palin would challenge that.
Sarah Palin has said she fired Walter Monegan over disagreements about budget priorities. Monegan says he received repeated e-mails and phone calls from both Palins and her staff expressing dismay over the continued employment of state trooper Mike Wooten, whose divorce from Sarah Palin's sister was ugly.
Todd Palin and 12 other people were subpoenaed Friday by a joint committee, made up of three Republicans and two Democrats, after prosecutor Stephen Branchflower said that someone may have attempted to deny workers' compensation benefits to Wooten.
No subpoena was sought or issued for the governor. When the investigation was announced less than two months ago, Palin said she welcomed it and promised her full cooperation.
The decisive vote in the committee's 3 to 2 decision was cast by Charlie Huggins, a Republican state senator from the Palins' home town of Wasilla. He explained his vote by saying: "I say let's just get the facts on the table; the sooner the better."
After McCain named Palin to the GOP national ticket, her supporters urged lawmakers to turn the Wooten matter over to the three-member State Personnel Board, which is appointed by the governor and charged with handling ethics complaints.
One lawmaker complained earlier this month that state Sen. Hollis French, the Anchorage Democrat overseeing the investigation, appears to be steering the investigation "in a manner that will have maximum partisan political impact on the national and state elections."
French said last night: "The McCain campaign seems to have forgotten that this began with a unanimous vote by eight Republicans and four Democrats to begin an investigation."
-- Karl Vick
PRIORITIES
Palin's List Includes Energy
GOLDEN, Colo. -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin outlined the priorities she would pursue as vice president should the GOP win the election this fall. Speaking before a boisterous crowd of a couple of thousand supporters at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds, Palin addressed the unfolding financial crisis on Wall Street, saying Washington has "been asleep at the switch, and ineffective."
"John McCain and I are going to put an end to the mismanagement and abuses in Washington and on Wall Street. It must be the market that the American people and investors everywhere can trust. This is going to be one of the highest priorities of our administration," she added.
Palin then revealed that she and McCain had agreed on three areas that she would focus on if he is elected president: energy, government reform and supporting "families with special needs."
-- Juliet Eilperin
IMMIGRATION
Ad: Democrats Made Reform Fail
The McCain campaign has begun airing a new Spanish-language television commercial in the battleground states of Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico that lays the failure of comprehensive immigration reform at the feet of Barack Obama and his Democratic colleagues -- despite the fact that Obama supported the bipartisan John McCain-Edward Kennedy efforts to enact such reforms and voted for their final proposal last year.
"Obama and his congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants," the ad's announcer says in Spanish in the spot, released Friday. "But are they? The press reports that their efforts were 'poison pills' that made immigration reform fail. The result: No guest-worker program. No path to citizenship. No secure borders. No reform. Is that being on our side? Obama and his congressional allies: Ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to lead."
-- Ed O'Keefe
LOAD-DATE: September 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; By Rick Wilking -- Reuters; Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in Golden, Colo., yesterday.
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The Washington Post
September 16, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
Ad Calls McCain's Campaign 'Dishonorable';
Obama on Offensive To Regain Traction
BYLINE: Anne E. Kornblut and Shailagh Murray; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
DATELINE: PUEBLO, Colo., Sept. 15
Sen. Barack Obama's campaign accused Sen. John McCain of running a "disgraceful, dishonorable campaign" in an advertisement launched Monday as the Democratic nominee vowed to leave no attack unanswered in the final weeks of the race for the White House.
Obama's running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., also mocked McCain, saying he was making the same promises to enact change as George W. Bush had offered in 2000 but failed to deliver on. Biden also joined in accusing McCain of shameful tactics, saying he no longer recognized his longtime friend.
"When Senator McCain was subjected to unconscionable, scurrilous attacks in his 2000 campaign, I called him on the phone to ask what I could do," Biden told a crowd of about 800 in Michigan. "And now, some of the very same people and the tactics he once deplored his campaign now employs."
After a string of tactical successes by McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, over the past two weeks, the Obama campaign sought to regain its footing on Monday. The shift followed a series of internal meetings, including a rare Sunday evening session at the campaign's Chicago headquarters that Obama attended.
Advisers reinforced the division of labor in the days ahead: Obama will articulate the campaign's broader message of "change" and outline how the Democratic ticket will govern, while Biden will deliver attacks against the GOP ticket, drawing on his 30-year-old relationship with McCain to undercut the Arizona senator's standing, especially among working-class voters.
But with a spate of new polls showing a very competitive race and with McCain and Palin drawing big crowds at appearances in battleground states, Obama will also take a consistently tougher line, as he did here Monday.
Appearing in front of an estimated 13,500 people at the state fairgrounds, Obama delivered a revised stump speech that centered largely on his mantra of change and took some tough shots at McCain. Accusing McCain of employing "politics that would divide this country just to win an election," Obama said the Republican had let "lies and spin consume a campaign that should be about you, should be about the issues, the great challenges of our time." He slammed McCain for saying he would reduce the influence of lobbyists in Washington, noting that the Republican has several former lobbyists in the upper echelons of his campaign.
If you believe that, Obama said, "Let me tell you, I've got a bridge to sell you up in Alaska."
And the Democrat -- using the word "change" over and over during his address -- said McCain has suddenly adopted Obama's message after running for months on experience. "For the last 19 months, he has argued that we don't need change, that what qualifies him to be president is the quarter-century he has been in Washington, the experience that comes from decades walking the halls of power," Obama said.
"But now, suddenly, John McCain says he's about change, too. He's even started using our lines. . . . He even put out an ad today -- get this -- that says Governor Palin and he would bring, and I quote, the change that we need," Obama said, drawing laughter from the crowd. "That sound familiar?"
Earlier in the day, after the Illinois senator made similar remarks at a stop in western Colorado, McCain pushed back. "Friends, Senator Obama's been saying some pretty nasty things about me and Governor Palin," McCain said. "That's okay; he can attack if he wants. All the insults in the world aren't going to bring change to Washington, and they're not going to change Senator Obama's record."
The Obama campaign is seeking to address a range of festering problems, including the candidate's persistent underperformance among female voters, especially the older ones. It rolled out a women's outreach effort Monday, led by scores of prominent female entrepreneurs, athletes and politicians, including former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright, cosmetics entrepreneur Bobbi Brown and Yahoo! Inc. President Sue Decker.
The women will act as surrogates for Obama, advocating his support for issues such as equal pay, expansion of family leave and reduction of health care costs. Prominent women also are flooding the airwaves on Obama's behalf, including Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Govs. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), a former Hillary Rodham Clinton backer.
But Obama's most aggressive advocate will be Biden, who will spend the coming weeks seeking to deflate McCain before audiences of working-class voters.
"Eight years ago, a man ran for president who claimed he was different, not a typical Republican. He called himself a reformer. He admitted that his party, the Republican Party, had been wrong about things from time to time. He promised to work with Democrats and said he'd been doing that for a long time," Biden told the group in Michigan.
"That candidate was George W. Bush. Remember that?" Biden said. "Eight years later, we have another Republican nominee who's telling us the exact same thing: This time it will be different, it really will. This time he's going to put country before party, to change the tone, reach across the aisle, change the Republican Party, change the way Washington works."
LOAD-DATE: September 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Paul Sancya -- Associated Press; Obama advisers hope Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. can undercut Sen. John McCain's standing among working-class voters.
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September 16, 2008 Tuesday
McCain, Obama have little to offer
BYLINE: By Joseph Curl, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The two presidential candidates on Monday put aside their heated debate over pig lipstick and returned to the issue most dear to Americans - the economy - but neither offered any new ideas for ending the financial crisis on Wall Street.
In a dizzying day of dueling statements and rapid-response rebuttals, Sen. John McCain said his long experience in Washington makes him better suited to combat Wall Street's greed and corruption. Sen. Barack Obama, meanwhile, blamed Republican policies for the crisis and claimed he would target aid to middle-class America most hurt by the current financial meltdown.
Yet as they spoke, evidence emerged that the economic fiasco had outgrown government intervention, and their words failed to quell a record plunge of the Dow, which apparently didn't care that both presidential candidates openly oppose a sputtering U.S. economy.
With two of America's oldest financial institutions crumbling amid a mortgage crisis and plummeting real estate values, the nominees faced off in a war of words, with attacks and counterattacks, each declaring that he is best able to handle the current economic upheaval.
"You know that there's been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets in Wall Street," Mr. McCain said to supporters in Jacksonville, Fla. "People are frightened by these events. ... I think still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong, but
these are still very, very difficult times, so I promise you:We will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street."
Mr. Obama said Mr. McCain's statement shows that the Republican is "out of touch" as he sought to tie the Arizona senator to the Bush administration.
"This country can't afford another four years of this failed philosophy," the Democrat said in an early morning statement. "The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren't minding the store."
But Mr. Obama added: "I certainly don't fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to."
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers pointed partisan fingers, with Democrats and Republicans blaming each other for not doing enough to stabilize the shaky financial markets. Neither presidential candidate questioned the Congress that they're part of for its oversight of the tumultuous markets.
"Failing to police lenders and neglecting to protect consumers ushered in the subprime crisis that has brought the American economy and Wall Street to their knees," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat. "This 'anything goes' approach to governing has resulted in lost jobs and carries an enormous price tag for the American taxpayer."
Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate banking committee, said that the committee "will continue to monitor" the situations on Wall Street and that it would conduct a "thorough review of how they transpired and what the implications are for global finance, the banking system, the U.S. economy and the American taxpayer."
Some economists questioned whether there is anything further that either candidate can propose beyond the actions that the Bush administration, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve have already taken.
"I don't know that there is too much more that the McCain campaign could come out with that the Bush administration has not already proposed," said economic consultant Cesar Conda, who was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief domestic adviser.
The two candidates had been locked in weeks of seemingly petty exchanges, with Mr. McCain most recently accusing his rival of sexism for using the phrase "lipstick on a pig," which his campaign contended was a dig at Republican running mate Sarah Palin.
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, released an ad last week showing his foe 25 years ago - with the outsized glasses in style then and clad in a now-horribly out-of-date suit - and charged that the 72-year-old doesn't send e-mails.
But with just 50 days to go until Election Day, the two returned to the issue most voters say is their No. 1 concern: the economy.
Mr. McCain, seeking to distance himself from President Bush and his administration, put the blame for the Wall Street's recent unraveling squarely on the federal government.
"The McCain-Palin administration will replace an outdated, patchwork quilt of regulatory oversight and bring transparency and accountability to Wall Street," Mr. McCain said in a statement.
The Republican nominee also released a new ad, titled "Crisis," which seemed to contradict his contention that the economy was fundamentally strong.
"Our economy in crisis. Only proven reformers John McCain and Sarah Palin can fix it. Tougher rules on Wall Street to protect your life savings. No special interest giveaways. Lower taxes to create new jobs. Offshore drilling to reduce gas prices," the ad says.
The rapid-response team at the Obama campaign fired back quickly, charging that Mr. McCain is part of the problem.
"Today of all days, John McCain's stubborn insistence that the 'fundamentals of the economy are strong' shows that he is disturbingly out of touch with what's going in the lives of ordinary Americans," said campaign spokesman Bill Burton. "Even as his own ads try to convince him that the economy is in crisis, apparently his 26 years in Washington have left him incapable of understanding that the policies he supports have created an historic economic crisis."
The candidates' economic plans are almost polar opposites of each other and, until now, have not addressed in any detail how they would restructure the government's bailed-out mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. McCain has proposed making the Bush tax cuts permanent, including the 35 percent top marginal income-tax rate, cutting the corporate tax rate, and keeping the capital gains tax rate for investors at 15 percent.
Mr. Obama wants to raise the top tax rate to nearly 40 percent, keep the 35 percent corporate tax rate where it is, and raise the capital gains tax on investments to 20 percent or more.
* Valerie Richardson in Colorado contributed to this article, along with Don Lambro and Sean Lengell in Washington.
LOAD-DATE: September 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, speaking at a town hall on Monday in Orlando, Fla., says he has the experience to get Wall Street under control. [Photo by Getty Images]
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, attending a rally in Grand Junction, Colo., released a statement linking Mr. McCain to President Bush's "failed philosophy." [Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]
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September 16, 2008 Tuesday
Palin's 'mission' to call for more transparency
BYLINE: By Valerie Richardson, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sarah Palin said her "mission" as vice president in a McCain administration would be to promote energy security, clean up government and increase support for families of special-needs children, including pushing for cures through medical research.
John McCain's Republican running mate called for more transparency as part of an effort to reform the federal government, noting that the state of Alaska puts its "checkbook" online "so that everybody can see where their money goes."
"I can't wait to start shaking things up in Washington," said Mrs. Palin, whose appearance before about 5,000 at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds marked her second day of solo campaigning.
Meanwhile, across the Continental Divide in Grand Junction, Colo., near the Utah border, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to link his rival to the "trickle-up" prosperity of the Bush administration.
Mr. Obama, the first presidential candidate to appear in the town since Harry Truman in 1948, accused the McCain campaign of trying to co-opt his message of change.
"John McCain suddenly says he is for change, too," Mr. Obama said. "He is even using some of my lines. He said in an ad today that he and Gov. Palin will bring the change that we need ... Instead of borrowing my lines, he needs to borrow some of our ideas"
Mr. Obama, making his first Colorado stop since the Democratic National Convention last month, also appeared yesterday at the Colorado State Fairgrounds in Pueblo, Colo., and is slated to speak Tuesday at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden.
Both candidates made references to yesterday's turmoil on the financial markets, with Mr. Obama insisting that there wasn't a "dime's worth of difference between John McCain's ideas and the things we are seeing now in Washington and Wall Street."
Mrs. Palin, meanwhile, said that righting the nation's economy and restoring its reputation worldwide would be "one of the highest priorities in our administration."
Yesterday's convergence of candidates underscored Colorado's status as a critical swing state for both campaigns. The state has supported Republicans in the past few presidential elections, backing Mr. Bush in 2004 by a margin of 52 percent to 47 percent.
But the Democrats have enjoyed a run of success since then, taking over both houses of the legislature in 2004, capturing a formerly Republican Senate seat the same year, and then winning back the governor's mansion in 2006.
As a result, both campaigns have targeted the Rocky Mountain West's most populous state and its nine electoral votes. Both members of the Republican ticket appeared in Colorado Springs eight days ago, almost immediately after the party convention in St. Paul, Minn.
One difference between that appearance and yesterday's event was that the opposition is now more organized. While only a handful of protesters turned out for the Colorado Springs rally, yesterday's speech drew about 100 protesters and an anti-McCain-Palin press conference led by former Colorado Lt. Gov. Gail Schoettler .
* This story was based in part on wire-service reports.
LOAD-DATE: September 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: Palin [NO CREDIT]
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September 16, 2008 Tuesday
A nightmare on Wall Street;
Dow dives 500 points; worst drop since 9/11
BYLINE: By Patrice Hill, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Wall Street plunged Monday in its worst performance since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as financial markets around the world absorbed the blow of the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history and worried that other American financial giants might also fail without the cushion of government bailouts.
The Bush administration sought to portray the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers brokerage as a necessary correction to years of Wall Street excesses, making clear that it never even considered a federal bailout of the storied investment house. Behind the scenes, regulators in Washington and New York tried to stave off another massive failure, this time in the insurance industry.
World markets reacted with shock. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 504 points to 10,918 - its largest point drop in seven years - as investors tried to sort through an estimated 100,000 claims against Lehman, one of the country's largest and most esteemed investment banks. With $639 billion in assets and $613 billion in debts, Lehman's bankruptcy filing far eclipsed the bankruptcy filing of WorldCom in 2002.
The Lehman filing was just one element of a trifecta of huge financial shocks yesterday. The nation's largest insurer, American International Group, went to the Federal Reserve and other regulators for help on getting a cash infusion to keep it from going under. In addition, the recently reeling Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America for $50 billion in stock.
The combination sent Wall Street whirling. Worries mounted that the renewed stress in stock and credit markets would imperil an economy already flagging under a deep slump in housing and auto production and sharp spike in energy prices. Several prominent economists said the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates when it meets Tuesday in an effort to limit the damage to the economy.
"The final cathartic rehabilitation of the financial industry has begun. Yes, it is violent and palpable," said Bernard Baumohl, managing director of the Economic Outlook Group. "After years of excessive risk-taking, cheap credit [and] a sense of invincibility, many large financial institutions are now paying the price."
The turning point came when the U.S. Treasury told potential buyers of Lehman over the weekend that it was not willing to bail out yet another financial institution on the rocks - something it had helped to do earlier this year with investment bank Bear Stearns as well as the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Mr. Baumohl said.
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said Monday he never even considered providing government guarantees or cash to save Lehman.
President Bush sought to maintain a sense of calm amid the financial turmoil, proceeding with a long-planned state dinner with the president of Ghana and portraying Monday's events as a necessary correction.
"I know Americans are concerned about the adjustments that are taking place in our financial markets," Mr. Bush said in the Rose Garden. "In the short run, adjustments in the financial markets can be painful. ... In the long run, I'm confident that our capital markets are flexible and resilient, and can deal with these adjustments"
On the campaign trail, the men seeking to succeed Mr. Bush struggled to gain the upper hand on the politics of the economic crisis with neither offering many new ideas. Republican John McCain argued that his lengthy experience left him best suited to combat the greed of Wall Street and bring about change while Democrat Barack Obama blamed the crisis on years of Republican policies.
The fallout from the Lehman bankruptcy was far-flung and profound on Wall Street.
The stock market sell-off started with a 300-point drop in the Dow and worsened at the end of the day, credit markets swooned, and an unraveling of Lehman's energy bets helped fuel a stunning $5.47 drop in oil prices to well below $100 a barrel.
The biggest surprise of the day was the abrupt sale of Merrill Lynch, a deal that was cobbled together over the weekend as a way to insure that the huge brokerage would not bethe next in line to succumb to mounting credit losses and market pressures.
Still, investors punished Merrill's acquirer Bank of America with a 21 percent drop in its stock price on concern that the bank was taking on too much debt in the transaction.
American International Group, the big insurer whose enormous balance sheet is also weighed down by big credit and mortgage losses, got some government help: New York regulators approved a quick cash infusion through borrowings from its subsidiaries.
But that did not prevent AIG's shares from nose-diving 61 percent to $4.76 on fears that it still might face a death spiral from a cash crunch and possible credit downgrade.
Late Monday, word emerged that the Fed was urging Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase to help AIG plug a $70 billion financing gap.
Now that the government has decided to step aside and let the chips fall, "the credit and financial markets are beginning to distinguish between institutions that are viable and those that aren't, making it more likely that the latter won't survive," said George Feiger, chief executive of Contango Capital Advisors.
He said that the credit markets are also in shock as thousands of Lehman's counterparties in credit deals awoke on Monday morning to the unpleasant news of the company's downfall. The event prompted bond investors to pile into Treasury bonds in a big rush to safety.
The stock of Washington Mutual, the nation's largest savings and loan with extensive subprime investments, fell 27 percent to $2 amid fears that it will soon be taken over by U.S. banking regulators.
Lehman shares, delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, plunged 94 percent to 21 cents.
Among the remaining Wall Street giants, Citigroup sank 15 percent to $15.24, Goldman Sachs shed 12 percent to $135.50 and Morgan Stanley dropped 13.5 percent to $32.19.
Analysts predicted that the fallout in financial markets - especially the complex credit markets that were Lehman's specialty - will be long and painful.
"What people fail to understand is that because of the complicated legal instruments by which these subprime loans were packaged and sold, the risks are widespread and even now not fully assessed," said Talcott Franklin, author of a recent book on litigation and the credit crisis.
"The first waves of the collapse came on the front lines, with borrower defaults and lender and broker bankruptcies. The second wave is hitting the investment banks who securitized the loans and the insurers who issued policies on the securities. Another wave is starting to hit investors, who are widespread and largely unknown," he said.
"The shocks to each of these players in the securitization markets will reverberate throughout the U.S. and world economy and will play out over a significant period of time. The overall result is easy to project: more defaults, more bankruptcies, and more economic pain."
Several prominent economists said the Fed should call off its fight against inflation for now and slash interest rates to limit the economic damage.
"The sudden bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers over the weekend has led to another dangerous escalation of the crisis in the U.S. financial markets - a crisis that has been seriously harming the performance of the economy for over a year now," said Brian Bethune, chief economist of Global Insight.
"Without supporting moves by the Fed to buffer the fallout in the form of an emergency rate cut, the risks to the financial system and the economy are massive," he said.
LOAD-DATE: September 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. says he never considered providing government guarantees of cash to save Lehman Brothers. A bankruptcy filing by the financial giant prompted the biggest decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 2001. [Photo by Getty Images]
FREE FALLING: A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 504 points, its largest drop since trading commenced after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. [Photo by Getty Images]
Lehman Brothers employees carry boxes out of the investment bank's headquarters in New York on Monday. [Photo by Associated Press]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
September 15, 2008 Monday
Metro Edition
REPUBLICANS FAULT BOTH CAMPAIGNS FOR NEGATIVE ADS
SECTION: NATIONAL; Pg. A7
Leading Republicans on Sunday faulted both presidential campaigns for the increasingly negative tone of their advertising, suggesting the bitter attacks undermine John McCain and Barack Obama's credibility with voters and could backfire.
"Both campaigns are making a mistake, and that is they are taking whatever their attacks are and going one step too far," said former White House political adviser Karl Rove. "They don't need to attack each other in this way. There ought to be an adult who says, 'Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don't we make our point and won't we get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don't include that one little last tweak in the ad?' "
In the past week, the McCain campaign has put out an Internet ad accusing Obama of calling Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin a pig when he used the phrase putting "lipstick on a pig" to criticize the GOP ticket as trying to make a bad situation look better.
In turn, a recent Obama TV ad makes a dig at McCain's age in saying McCain hasn't changed in the past 26 years. It shows McCain at a hearing in the early 1980s.
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP presidential nomination, said McCain and Obama need to engage more openly in town hall meetings rather than back-and-forth negative advertising.
-- Associated Press
LOAD-DATE: September 20, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 15, 2008 Monday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
All too quiet on the U.S. front Head goes here and goes here
DATELINE: IF RECENT history is any guide
By CLARK KENT ERVIN
IF RECENT history is any guide -- the first World Trade Center bombing a month after Bill Clinton became president; 9/11 , in the first year of the Bush administration; the Madrid bombing in 2004 on the eve of a national election in Spain; and the foiled London-Glasgow bomb plot last summer at the start of a new government -- President Barack Obama or President John McCain may well be tested by terrorists soon after taking office.
It is not just historical patterns that suggest that another major attack is likely to be attempted sooner rather than later.
Our intelligence agencies tell us that al-Qaida is stronger now than at any time since 2001. The sanctuary the group found in Afghanistan has been recreated just over the border in Pakistan, and the departure of former Gen. Pervez Musharraf as that country's president makes it less likely that the terrorist training camps there will soon be flushed out.
Thanks to the strain Iraq continues to place on our military, it may not be long before the Taliban reclaims all of Afghanistan.
With two bases of operation, al-Qaida would be even stronger than it was before 9/11. Around the world, the flames of anti-Americanism have rarely burned hotter, creating a geopolitical environment that increases the risk of a terrorist attack here.
The candidates owe it to us to explain -- loudly often, and in detail -- exactly what they think the federal government has done right and done wrong in the seven years since 9/11 in securing this country against another terrorist attack.
Yet neither candidate has said much, during the long 2008 presidential campaign, about homeland security. Both McCain and Obama address the topic to some degree on their Web sites, but they do not discuss it in detail in stump speeches; nor do they tend to bring it up unbidden in town hall meetings or interviews with the news media.
The government's approach to homeland security needs to be changed drastically if we are to close the gap between how secure we need to be and how secure we really are.
Airport screeners still fail undercover tests of their ability to spot concealed weapons. Scanners at seaports are unable to detect the presence of deadly radiation in cargo containers.
Here are just a few of the questions that each candidate should answer:
* What sectors and sites remain most vulnerable to terrorist attacks, and in what priority should these vulnerabilities be addressed? Should, for example, all airport workers be routinely screened like passengers?
* Once detection technology is improved, should all cargo arriving at seaports be scanned for radiation?
* Is additional spending needed to address any of the nation's vulnerabilities?
n How would you improve the collection, analysis and dissemination of intelligence related to homeland security?
* What is the proper balance between security and liberty?
* How, if at all, should the Department of Homeland Security be restructured?
As Hillary Clinton's iconic campaign ad underscored, the phone may well ring in the White House early one morning next year, with news of an attack on our soil. Americans want to know that the president who would answer that call has the judgment, expertise and experience to execute an effective response.
We also need a president who will do everything within his power to prevent such an attack.
Knowing the answers that McCain and Obama would give to questions about homeland security would help voters judge which candidate is best prepared to defend and to deter.
Clark Kent Ervin, inspector general of the Homeland Security Department from 2003 to 2004, is a fellow at the Aspen Institute and the author of "Open Target: Where America Is Vulnerable to Attack." This column appeared earlier in The New York Times.
LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 15, 2008 Monday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Amid NASCAR drivers, McCain heads north - and looks south
By Glen Johnson
The Associated Press
LOUDON, N.H.
Sen. John McCain defied all sense of geography Sunday by going north and south at the same time.
The Republican presidential contender visited the battleground state of New Hampshire to attend a NASCAR race especially popular in GOP strongholds down South.
The twofer let McCain spend time in a state where Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has opened a lead - and campaigned Saturday - while simultaneously prospecting in a different region he is counting to be part of his Election Day base.
"Thank you for your support for the men and women in the military," McCain told a meeting of race drivers. He was accompanied by NASCAR legend Richard Petty. "When I'm in Iraq and Afghanistan, they're watching you. You are their role model."
Petty led McCain through the garage area, where he shook hands with team owner and former NFL coach Joe Gibbs. McCain also was accompanied by Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, popular in New England despite being sidelined this season after shoulder surgery.
Meanwhile, former Bush political adviser Karl Rove became an unlikely critic of McCain, complaining that he had joined Obama in shading the truth in their campaign advertising. "McCain has gone, in some of his ads, similarly gone one step too far in sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent truth test," Rove told Fox News Sunday.
The Obama campaign has complained especially about an ad that declares Obama supports sex education for kindergartners. He supported a program to teach children how to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable touching to help them ward off sexual predators.
plans for today
Sen. John McCain is bolstering his Southern outreach today with a rally in Jacksonville, Fla., where recent polls have shown him leading Sen. Barack Obama. McCain won the Republican primaries in Florida and New Hampshire this year.
LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2008
GRAPHIC: Stephan Savoia | The Associated press Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain follows NASCAR legend Richard Petty, right, on a tour of the garage area before the Sylvania 300 Sprint Cup Series in New Hampshire on Sunday.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 15, 2008 Monday
Every Edition
Hispanic Businesses Get Out the Vote;
Recruitment Campaigns, Immigration Debate Spur Latinos
BYLINE: Alejandro Lazo; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. D01
Hispanic businesses and Spanish-language media, galvanized by the immigration debates of recent years, are sponsoring a bevy of civic engagement and get-out-the-vote efforts in the Washington area.
Some are part of larger national campaigns, spurred both by discussions of immigration policy and by Republican and Democratic interest in recruiting Hispanic voters. The majority of the efforts are nonpartisan and aimed at getting Hispanics to register and show up on Election Day.
The Ayuda Business Coalition runs one such campaign, focusing on Northern Virginia, particularly Prince William County. The nonprofit was formed last year by business owners opposed to the county's crackdown on illegal immigration, calling it bad for the local economy. It consists of more than 100 local, Hispanic-owned businesses.
Ayuda has set up registration booths at some members' grocery stores and at soccer matches. It also plans to conduct demonstrations on how to use voting machines and run spots on Spanish-language radio with the tagline, "Si no votas, no cuentas," or, "If you don't vote, you don't count."
José Marinay, the owner of a real estate settlement company in Annapolis, joined the Ayuda coalition last year when he saw sales at his Smart Choice Settlements office in Prince William County plummet. Marinay said he had donated to Democratic campaigns in the past but had not been involved in lobbying or voter mobilization efforts.
"Immigration was having a tremendous effect in Prince William County because nobody wanted to buy there and it was like they were shutting the door down on us," Marinay said. "There was nothing I could do, and I was trying to find a way to make a difference."
Both Republicans and Democrats are courting the Hispanic vote. The Service Employees International Union, which has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), has been getting its members to register Hispanic voters by phone and on the streets. The Republican National Hispanic Assembly, on behalf of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), plans to hold its own roundtable discussions for Hispanic business owners before the election, emphasizing tax issues. It also plans to host Hispanic happy hours.
"The Hispanic vote in Virginia could be pivotal," said Raul "Danny" Vargas, the founder of Herndon marketing company VARCom Solutions and chairman of the assembly. "What you will see is that there are a number of business leaders that are engaged in the political process, whereas they had not been before."
Hispanic media are also playing a stepped-up role, donating air time and advertising space to get Hispanic voters to the polls. Local newspapers Washington Hispanic and El Tiempo Latino, a publication of The Washington Post Co., are donating ad space to the campaign called "Ya Es Hora," or "It's Time," run by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in Los Angeles.
That campaign, backed nationally by the Spanish-language media giant Univision, has been encouraging immigrants to gain citizenship and vote this year.
Alberto Avendaño, associate publisher and editor in chief of El Tiempo Latino, said the campaign was born out of the demonstrations by immigrants in 2006.
"This year, the community is really energized," Avendaño said.
The local affiliate of Telemundo is partnering with the nonprofit Voto Latino, which will run public service announcements and give political analysis, said Maria Teresa Petersen, director of the Voto Latino campaign.
The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce plans to launch get-out-the-vote efforts in October to try to mobilize voters through its member chambers, including ones in the District, Rockville, Germantown and Herndon. It is the first time that the chamber, which has also stepped up its lobbying and policy efforts in the past two years, has attempted to mobilize voters, said David Ferreira, vice president of government affairs for the commerce.
"We decided to get involved in this election once we saw that comprehensive immigration [legislation] failed," he said. "We knew we needed to activate the Hispanic community."
LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post; Mirna Urias mans a phone for the Service Employees International Union's push to get Hispanics to register to vote. Other local groups are making similar efforts.
IMAGE; By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post; Christian Gonzalez, right, recruited Claudia Amurrio to Barack Obama's campaign. Volunteer efforts targeting Hispanic voters are on the rise.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 15, 2008 Monday
Suburban Edition
Fey-as-Palin Wins the Early Vote On 'SNL'
"Saturday Night Live" season premieres are almost always on the shaky side, and the 34th season debut was no exception. It took off, however, like a skyrocket.
Saturday's "cold open" sketch -- a "Nonpartisan Message From Sarah Palin & Hillary Clinton" -- rose to the occasion and then kept rising, right into the stratosphere. Former writer and cast member Tina Fey, making a brief return to the show, played the Republican vice presidential candidate, with pregnant cast member Amy Poehler doing her sure-fire, time-tested Clinton right beside her.
In the parlance of the show (and comedians generally), they "killed."
Their strong showing helped make up for the fact that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama -- who was scheduled to make a guest appearance at least once during the program -- didn't show. Executive producer Lorne Michaels got the bad news Friday night at 10, about 24 hours after hearing from the Obama campaign that the senator definitely would appear.
"His people called and said they felt they had to shut it down because of the storm," meaning Hurricane Ike, Michaels said yesterday by phone from New York. "I pleaded with them to wait and make the decision on Saturday morning, but they felt they had to do it then. There was a sensitivity to how it would be perceived -- whether he would be criticized for doing it while disaster struck."
Did he make the right decision? "It was certainly the wrong decision for me," Michaels said. "Do I think there's an oversensitivity in this area? Yes." But Michaels said he would be happy to have Obama appear on a future show, provided a good sketch can be devised. "It was an enormous disappointment," Michaels said, "but they were very pleasant about it -- 'Please have us back again' and all that."
In the words of the announcement from the Obama camp: "In light of the unfolding crisis in Texas, Senator Obama has decided it is no longer appropriate to appear on 'Saturday Night Live' tomorrow evening."
The monologue, by guest host and Olympic swimming champ Michael Phelps, was to have been built around Obama and would have included an additional cameo by action star Chuck Norris. But Norris, too, canceled because of the hurricane, and William Shatner was enlisted as his replacement. Shatner was already en route from Los Angeles via chartered airplane when Obama dropped out; the monologue was reworked so that it would still include a Shatner cameo.
"It was great of him to do it," Michaels said of Shatner. Michaels said Obama was to have returned briefly for a second appearance, during the "Weekend Update" segment, but that was obviously scuttled, too.
Last-minute catastrophes necessitating last-minute changes and rewrites are nothing new for Michaels and "Saturday Night Live." Fey wasn't even certain she could appear, Michaels said, since she was shooting an episode of her own hit prime-time comedy, "30 Rock," all day Friday and until 5 p.m. Saturday. Because Oprah Winfrey was guest-starring on the episode, the shooting schedule could not be changed.
"She came by Friday night and we rehearsed," Michaels said of Fey. The sketch was written by "Update" co-anchor Seth Meyers with assists from Fey and Poehler, and every punch line got roars from the 400 people in the studio audience.
Poehler as Clinton: "I believe that diplomacy should be the cornerstone of any foreign policy."
Fey as Palin: "And I can see Russia from my house!"
Poehler: "I believe global warming is caused by man."
Fey: "And I believe it's just God huggin' us closer."
While Poehler's Clinton tried to speak seriously to the issue of sexism, Fey's Palin mimed posing for photos, including one in which she loaded and fired a rifle -- all the time maintaining a big, occasionally seductive grin on her face.
Michaels said that to have followed the Fey-Poehler sketch with an Obama appearance would have been a sensation. But the sketch, and Fey's dead-on impression of Palin -- to whom she famously bears a definite resemblance -- went over so explosively that everything that came after it seemed anticlimactic, even though it only took up the first five of the show's 90 minutes (including about 30 minutes of commercials).
CNN was reporting Fey's return to the show as national news Friday, as well as the planned appearance by Obama. "The entire country cast Tina in that part," Michaels said; hundreds of e-mails and letters from viewers had all but demanded that Fey play Palin, almost from the hour that Palin was announced as John McCain's running mate.
The tremendous buzz was reflected in the ratings. Early overnight figures showed the "Saturday Night Live" season premiere earned a 7.4 rating and 18 percent share of viewers watching at that hour -- the highest for a season premiere since 2001, and the highest for any "SNL" telecast since Dec. 14, 2002, when Al Gore was host. The numbers were up 64 percent over last year's season premiere, according to Nielsen "metered market" data.
Phelps sometimes looked stiff and lost in thought during his sketches, yet just as often, he brightened to the task and came through. He was perhaps funniest during the "Michael Phelps Diet" sketch, in which he outlined the contents of his 12,000-calorie-a-day intake. Earlier, he did a good job as a home-educated rube in a high school "quiz bowl" sketch.
Unfortunately, the show never again rose to the dizzy heights of those first five minutes. Asked whether the first show of a season had ever also been the best show of a season, Michaels said: "Almost never. Generally it takes us a while to shake down."
In special scheduling for the presidential year, "SNL" will be seen 10 more times prior to Election Day -- three more Saturday nights and seven prime-time specials.
Saturday night's musical guest, Lil Wayne, didn't perform his second number until the last few minutes of the broadcast, perhaps because the song had worried NBC censors. Some of the lyrics, according to the closed captions: "I like that like a lollipop . . . Shawty wanna hump . . . You'd know I'd love to touch your lovely lady lumps."
Among the distinctions of his performance, Lil Wayne wore his jeans below his buttocks while they clung for dear life in front. "I thought he was amazing," Michaels said of Lil Wayne's performance. And of the rapper's pants, the producer said: "I'm not saying you should wear yours that way, but clearly it's our job to set trends."
LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Dana Edelson -- Nbc Via Associated Press; A role she was born to play? Tina Fey as the GOP veep nominee.
IMAGE; By Dana Edelson -- Nbc Via Associated Press; Tina Fey, left, creates a dead-on Sarah Palin to Amy Poehler's time-tested Hillary Clinton on "Saturday Night Live."
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 15, 2008 Monday
Suburban Edition
Gibson Trod A Fine Line In Interviews
BYLINE: Howard Kurtz; Washington Post Staff Writer
For a precious few moments, the presidential campaign wasn't about Sarah Palin's hairstyle or her Naughty Monkey red shoes or her daughter's pregnancy.
Charlie Gibson was all business during three interviews with the Alaska governor last week, pressing her on her qualifications to take over as president and her knowledge of national and international issues. The ABC anchor navigated a minefield in which he would have been slammed for going easy on America's newest celebrity and denounced if he were seen as hectoring her. When he finally got around to asking what everyone in America has been debating -- how can she juggle five kids and the vice presidency? -- Gibson prefaced it by saying, "Is that a sexist question to ask?"
No national candidate in modern history, not even Hillary Clinton, has ever been lambasted and lionized in quite the way Palin is. Why, for instance, do so many journalists feel compelled to mention her looks? Why are her family choices at the center of a noisy, cable-driven debate? Why are some Republicans convinced that the media apply a different standard to conservative women -- and journalists just as convinced that legitimate reporting is being written off as sexist snobbery?
Gibson managed to cut through that static. Instead of the touchy-feely stuff, there were questions about Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, abortion, gun control and global warming. Gibson did no grandstanding, even as he followed up on questions three or four times. And if he seemed like an unsmiling professor peering over his glasses at an earnest graduate student, well, the first time a vice presidential nominee submits to journalistic scrutiny is an oral exam of sorts.
"The headlines are about her answers, not Charlie's interview, and that was our goal from the start," ABC Senior Vice President Jeffrey Schneider says.
The McCain camp decided early that Palin's first interview should go to one of the network anchors, so she would be seen as hitting major-league pitching before a large audience. Gibson, 65, was viewed as fair-minded, McCain aides said, in part because of the way he has handled several interviews with President Bush. The plan is to give CBS's Katie Couric a chance later on, and perhaps NBC's Brian Williams as well.
The McCain team was satisfied with the interviews but found Gibson a bit condescending at times, a judgment that is firmly in the beholder's eye. New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley said he was "at times supercilious."
But when Palin seemed puzzled by a question about the Bush Doctrine -- which has several possible meanings -- Gibson explained what he meant without making it sound like a gotcha moment. Earlier, however, he did follow up on her answer about not hesitating to become McCain's running mate by wondering: "Didn't that take some hubris?"
Some conservatives criticized Gibson for raising religion by asking Palin whether she considers the Iraq conflict a "holy war." But how can it be unfair to ask about her own words, in a church, that "our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God"?
She is likely to have an easier time tomorrow in her second interview, with Fox News's Sean Hannity. The day McCain picked Palin, Hannity declared: "She is a rock star, a rising star, a governor with more experience than Barack Obama ever dreamed of having."
It was conservative pundits who originally talked up Palin. She gained attention last year when a Weekly Standard cruise happened to sail into Alaska, and an aide invited the magazine's top editors, Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol, to lunch with the governor.
"We talked for 1 1/2 hours," said Barnes, who lived in Alaska as an elementary school student. "I was impressed enough to write a story. I wasn't thinking of Sarah Palin as a vice presidential running mate for anyone. Nor did I see the star quality she obviously has. I saw her as a smart, very confident, very pretty governor."
His June 2007 profile called Palin "the most popular governor in America," discussed her "Christian faith" and praised her "adherence to principle."
Other conservative commentators took notice; radio host Laura Ingraham called Palin a potential president last summer after meeting her at a luncheon in Alaska. And a number of the men paid tribute to the governor's looks. In February, Rush Limbaugh told a caller from Alaska: "Yeah, plus she's a housewife; before that, she's a babe. I saw a picture. . . . The babe is the icing-on-the-cake aspect, something the Democrats can't claim on their side."
The same month, National Review writer Stephen Sprueill called Palin a "solidly conservative (and ridiculously good-looking) Republican." In the American Spectator, Thomas Cheplick wrote that "the beautiful conservative Republican governor of Alaska would be an ideal choice" for vice president. Last fall, a Wonkette blogger called Palin "the hottest governor in all 50 states" and "my total girl crush."
A similar thread runs through the recent coverage. "To start with the obvious, she's attractive," writes Time's Joe Klein. The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan calls Palin "this beautiful girl." "Large numbers of Americans think she's hot," said Salon's Gary Kamiya, whose piece was accompanied by a photo illustration of Palin as a dominatrix.
"She's sexy. Men want a sexy woman," CNBC's Donny Deutsch told viewers. "Women want to idealize about a sexy woman. . . . She's a lioness. . . . Women want to be her. Men want to mate with her." Slate's David Plotz confessed that he's been dreaming about Palin and that "a couple of conservative men I know have mentioned that they've been having sexual fantasies about the Alaska governor."
What, exactly, is going on here?
"The fact that she's a fairly youthful woman adds to her appeal," San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carolyn Lochhead says. "It has nothing to do with being qualified for vice president. It's a fact of human nature. Women routinely use their looks, and men routinely fall for it."
That, of course, doesn't mean that journalists have to buy into the narrative. "The media should focus on her policies rather than her looks," Lochhead says. "But if her looks are news, I guess that's part of the story."
Peggy Drexler, who wrote a Huffington Post blog about "the babe factor," calls the coverage "demeaning to other women. Most women have tried very hard to be perceived as people who are capable of producing. But the culture is the way it is."
Palin, she says, has played up her appearance with her 1980s beauty-pageant photo and by posing for Vogue: "She is the Playboy fantasy of the nurse with her hair up in her prim little suit, and then the hair comes down and she's the hot babe."
For 18 months, Obama's opponents complained that the media treated him like a celebrity. McCain even aired an ad likening him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Now Obama is being overshadowed by a new superstar, a woman with an intriguing life story, and liberals are complaining that Palin is getting a pass on the issues.
Palin's defenders haven't hesitated to accuse journalists (as well as Democrats) who question her record of ganging up on a woman. And there has been a degree of piling on, even as she remained secluded from the press. At times, the media hubbub has threatened to drown out the original concern about Palin, voiced when the insta-pundits were calling her selection a reckless gamble: Is she qualified to serve as a potential president? In Alaska, Gibson took the country back to that basic question.
Steamy Messages
The Miami Herald is investigating a series of romantic e-mails between its former education reporter and a school official who is now the region's incoming school superintendent.
In one message, Tania Luzuriaga, now with the Boston Globe, wrote Alberto Carvalho: "Will you be completely offended if I leap into your arms the next time I see you (place permitting)? Like in the movies, with arms and legs wrapped around . . . Love, love, love you." In another, Luzuriaga apologized for not properly crediting him in a story, saying, "if it doesn't compromise us professionally, we ought to act in ways that help one another." There are also notes about plans to travel together. Carvalho says he doesn't recall seeing the messages; Luzuriaga did not return a phone call.
"If these e-mails are real, this violates some of the most basic rules of our profession,'' Herald Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal told his paper.
LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Donna Svennevik -- Associated Press; Sarah Palin's good looks weren't on the agenda last week as Charlie Gibson asked her tough questions about Iraq, abortion and global warming.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
September 15, 2008 Monday
Lehman Brothers readies for bankruptcy;
Lack of a guarantee deters white knights
BYLINE: By Patrice Hill, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Wall Street titan Lehman Brothers headed into bankruptcy Sunday after potential buyers Barclays Banks of Britain and Bank of America backed away, citing the Treasury's refusal to guarantee Lehman's toxic mortgage portfolio.
In weekend-long negotiations at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, leaders of the Treasury, the Fed and the Securities and Exchange Commission sought to persuade the two banks, as well as other top Wall Street firms, to step forward and acquire all or part of Lehman to avoid a major downturn that could be triggered by a Lehman collapse when stock and credit markets reopen Monday.
Separately late Sunday, a person briefed on the deal said Bank of America Corp. is buying Merrill Lynch & Co. for about $50 billion, the Associated Press reported. The deal will create a financial-services giant and lift the uncertainty that has shrouded the nation's biggest brokerage since the credit crisis began.
With no takers, the once-powerful Lehman planned to file for bankruptcy and liquidate its brokerage operations after 158 years in business Sunday night. In anticipation of that happening, Wall Street firms conducted an unusual Sunday trading session in the $62 trillion credit-derivatives market to try to unwind sensitive credit-insurance deals backed by Lehman and forestall a potentially monumental crunch in the credit market on Monday.
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox said customers of the brokerage are protected from losses on their investment accounts under a federal insurance program. He urged any investors requiring help retrieving their money to contact the SEC.
"For several days, we have worked closely with regulators around the world, including [Britain, Germany and Japan] to coordinate our actions in the interest of orderly markets," he said. "We are committed to [reducing] the potential for dislocations from recent events and to maintain the smooth functioning of the financial markets."
The Fed also made an adjustment in its loan program for Wall Street firms to accommodate Lehman and other investment banks that are struggling to cope with mounting credit losses. It said it would accept lower-quality mortgage securities and credit instruments as collateral on the loans. Previously, the Fed would accept only the highest-rated securities in exchange for the loans.
The federal involvement appeared minimal, aimed mostly at facilitating the liquidation of Lehman. Federal officials and Wall Street leaders were at loggerheads all weekend over the critical issue of government involvement in the transactions. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. was adamantly against providing any guarantees on Lehman's money-losing assets like the guarantee the Fed provided on $29 billion of Bear Stearns mortgages in March to facilitate Bear's takeover by J.P. Morgan.
But Wall Street executives had little reason to put their own scarce capital into saving a competitor or backing its bad loans. In addition, political and financial leaders have been calling on the Treasury to draw the line and let the Lehman investment house fail to prevent any further unnecessary losses for taxpayers after the Treasury's massive bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac only a week ago.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told ABC's "This Week" Sunday that not all major financial institutions can be saved and that some are certain to fail in what he said may be the biggest credit crisis in a century.
"This is a once in a half-century, probably once in a century type of event," he said. "We shouldn't try to protect every single institution. The ordinary cost of financial change has winners and losers.
"What they are trying to do with Lehman is find a way in which there is no government money involved in this particular set of negotiations," he said. "If they can't, they have to make a very key decision as to whether they allow it to liquidate or support it."
Mr. Greenspan said the government should do what it can to ensure Lehman's failure is orderly and does not cause great turmoil to financial markets.
"There are certain types of institutions which are so fundamental to the functioning of the movement of savings into real investments in an economy that on very rare occasions, and this is one of them, it's desirable to prevent them from liquidating in a sharply disruptive manner," he said.
Public opinion has come out strongly against another massive bailout only days after the government took responsibility for Fannie's and Freddie's gigantic debts.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said he is opposed to any government intervention to save Lehman and advocates a private-sector solution. Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has not taken a public position on the Lehman matter.
In the clearest sign that Lehman is headed for the bankruptcy courts in what would be the biggest Wall Street financial failure in decades, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association called for a special session Sunday to try to purge the intricately interconnected credit-default swaps market of insurance deals that would become worthless if Lehman goes bankrupt.
"The purpose of this session is to reduce risk associated with a potential Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. bankruptcy," the association said. But should bankruptcy be avoided, it added, any deals done during the Sunday session would "cease to exist."
How the markets would react to Lehman's failure is the subject of much debate. Most analysts feared it could cause a major disruption in the credit-insurance market, which was the reason behind Sunday's special session.
The broader stock and credit markets also may react negatively. The one certain thing is that Lehman's own stock will plummet, erasing what little value it had at the end of trading on Friday, when it closed at $3.65 a share.
One loose end from the fruitless weekend negotiations was the fate of an estimated $85 billion in bad loans Lehman has on its books. The company sought to separate those out and sell them, but found no buyers, and the government was unwilling to make them more salable by providing a guarantee.
Some analysts fear that if the loan portfolios are sold at fire-sale prices in bankruptcy proceedings, that will lead to further steep write-downs of similar loans on the books of nearly every other U.S. bank and financial institution, possibly triggering another round of deep losses and bank failures.
But many other Wall Street analysts have concluded that a Lehman bankruptcy can be absorbed by the financial system without great damage.
"Six months after Bear, regulators should have ensured that a smallish investment bank could go under without systemic damage," said Richard Beales, analyst at BreakingViews.com. "If Hank Paulson and company feels the need to step in, it suggests that years of deregulation have locked in a government backstop for Wall Street's risk-taking."
"Lehman has a negative net worth," said Peter Morici, business professor at the University of Maryland. "Most other banks need all the cash they have to cover their own bad securities, and any money they put into a crippled holding company would likely just be lost.
"It is time to toss in the towel on Lehman, unwind the counterparty trades and march it through Chapter 7," he said.
LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2008
GRAPHIC: Negotiations on Lehman Brothers in New York this weekend included leaders of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission. [Photo by Bloomberg News]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 15, 2008 Monday
Palin's 'Mr. Mom' a secret weapon?;
Appeal seen to blue-collar vote
BYLINE: By Andrea Billups, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
He's a member of the steelworkers union, a registered independent and has championed the need for vocational - not Ivy League - education in his home state.
He works the night shift in North Slope oil fields, fishes commercially in icy waters and flies around snowy Alaska in a floatplane, all the while winning four cross-state snowmobile championships.
At home, he happily navigates between hardworking man's man and hunky Mr. Mom to the five Palin children, comfortable in his role as rock-solid support spouse to wife Sarah's power career.
Now, with her historic nomination as Republican vice-presidential candidate, some are wondering if Todd Palin might be the Republican Party's key and yet untapped surrogate to reaching working-class voters, some put off by Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama.
"If I had a crystal ball a few years ago, I might have asked a few more questions when Sarah decided to join the PTA," Mr. Palin joked at a Republican National Convention event in St. Paul, Minn., acknowledging how his own life was caught up in his wife's political whirlwind.
With his wife's notorious tenacity and competitive streak, "it's best to get out of the way," he said.
Two weeks after his wife's debut as Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's No. 2, Mr. Palin's colorful back story and public profile are rising, including an "Iron Dog Alaska Snow Machine trail sign from 1998" catching steam on eBay, said Karen Bard, the Web commerce giant's pop-culture expert.
"His persona is rugged, and he's a real mountain man. He's very male," Miss Bard says of the Todd Palin appeal.
The Palins' seemingly tight-knit "Brady Bunch" family with five children, including an infant, also continues to fascinate. As dad, Mr. Palin appears modern enough to handle his wife's surging national profile yet able to identify with working-class men.
This voter demographic was loyal to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries, particularly in states such as West Virginia and Kentucky.
Mr. Palin "might be just the man to make their case," said Wilfred McClay, a professor of humanities at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, who recognizes Todd's "authentic" appeal.
"This guy is not a big-resume guy, and he's not a wimp. He's something different, almost the kind of husband that a lot of women who have to work and be the breadwinner wish that they could have," Mr. McClay said.
Mr. McClay says Mr. Palin's working-man credibility and his wife's bootstrap approach to governing set them apart from the power-coupling that often predominates in Washington. They have children and jobs, and live full "hockey mom" lives, which seem far away from the world of political-minded Beltway strivers.
"A part of why this is all working is it's actually real," he said. "This is not a gimmick."
By contrast, he says, the Palins' seeming middle-America wholesomeness may force some voters, including union-types traditionally aligned with Democrats, to rethink the Obama rock-star image.
Sociologist Veronica Tichenor, an assistant professor at the SUNY Institute of Technology in Utica, N.Y., said the Palins are not typical in that even as a career woman, Sarah Palin has had five children and has not diminished her role as mother, even as her profile has climbed.
"He's been very successful in presenting a very masculine side, and I think it will probably allow working-class men to identify with him and by extension, her," Miss Tichenor said. "That's a distinct possibility."
LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2008
GRAPHIC: Palin [NO CREDIT]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 15, 2008 Monday
BYLINE: By Andrew Breitbart, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; BIG HOLLYWOOD; A04
Matt Damon is scared.
Last week his e-mail runneth over with nasty Sarah Palin rumors. And before he could get his facts straight, the "Bourne" film series star and Barack Obama supporter spread false fears in a hysterical video that immediately went viral on the Internet.
"I want to know if she thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago or if she banned books or tried to ban books," Mr. Damon raged to the Associated Press. "I mean - you know, we can't - we can't have that."
Mrs. Palin has neither pushed for creationism in Alaska schools nor moved to ban a single book in Wasilla. Yet the "Ocean's 14" ensemble is currently unable to get through another smarmy scene for fear that a John McCain presidency will lead to an evangelical Christian theocracy and catastrophic artistic oppression.
The sad fact is that actual artistic oppression - book banning in its many modern forms - is a matter of course in the entertainment industry, especially when the underlying product is declared politically incorrect or runs contrary to the interests of Hollywood's political altar, the Democratic Party.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations runs rings around Hollywood's pious First Amendment absolutists.
"I hope you will be reassured that I have no intention of promoting negative images of Muslims or Arabs," director Phil Alden Robinson wrote after changing the script from Muslim terrorists to Austrian neo-Nazis in the Tom Clancy thriller, "The Sum of all Fears." "And I wish you the best in your continuing efforts to combat discrimination."
While Mr. Clancy put up an admirable fight, actor Ben Affleck acquiesced, cashed his multimillion-dollar check and fought the dreaded Austrians, whose flagging Teutonic self-confidence again took a hit. Thanks to Hollywood artistic appeasement, Arab youth in totalitarian Muslim countries indoctrinated in anti-Western thought dodged another esteem bullet.
Perhaps Mr. Affleck would still have a career as a leading man if the highly anticipated "The Sum of All Fears" added up to the realistic "war on terror" headlines that dominated news cycles as it came out in 2002 - or, God forbid, matched up to its authors' chosen words, characters and ideas. Now Mr. Affleck sits near the craft service table watching his wife, Jennifer Garner, fight the bad guys.
The silence of the celebrity political class was heartbreaking when Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered by an Islamic radical in retaliation for making "Submission," a critically acclaimed film that portrayed horrific female oppression within the practice of Islam.
Yet Hollywood - quick to find martyrs near to its heart (Valerie Plame, et al) - ignored its fallen Dutch comrade and refused to celebrate the film and its maker, fulfilling his murderer's greatest desire.
"It's like a really bad Disney movie," Mr. Damon said of Mrs. Palin's political rise.
Yet it was a really good Disney movie that stands as a lasting symbol that censorship is alive and well in liberal Hollywood. In 2006, ABC and its parent company poured $40 million into a five-hour, commercial-free miniseries called "The Path to 9/11." Built to play every year on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the docu-drama chronicles how the al Qaeda menace grew under the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Night 1 focused on the Clinton years; Night 2 looked into the eight months leading up to the attacks under President Bush. ABC considered the two-day movie experience a gift to the country, and over the two-night airing an astounding 28 million viewers tuned in.
Less about politics, "The Path to 9/11" focused on the emergence of radical Islamic terror as a clear and present American threat. Neither administration was cast as the villain; the Islamic terrorists were. Both administrations were rightfully portrayed as underestimating the threat.
Yet politicians and government employees tied to Bill and Hillary Clinton, all who admittedly hadn't seen the film, took to the airwaves to demand it not be aired or be radically edited, with only days to go before its premiere.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Rep. Louise M. Slaughter and even former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, who was convicted of destroying top-secret national security documents, demanded that Disney cut the movie to their liking or pull it from the air, within days of its anticipated airing.
Political hacks gleefully declared victory over free speech. Hollywood stood silent as the political class demanded blatant censorship.
Because the Clinton political family didn't like one scene in one movie - one that accurately portrayed that the Clinton administration had chances to take out Osama bin Laden - ABC and Disney folded to the pressure and, as a result, the film will likely never be seen on network television again, nor will it ever make its way to the lucrative DVD market - the modern equivalent of taking it off the library shelf.
Even $2 million movies make their way to the marketplace - let alone $40 million controversial ones that already have been seen by millions.
"It's censorship in the most blatant way," left-wing filmmaker Oliver Stone said. "I'm not vouching for its accuracy - it's a dramatization - but it's an important work and needs to be seen."
"Blocking the Path to 9/11" is a devastating documentary directed by former talk-show host John Ziegler that shows exactly how censorship works in America. As long as it is supported by Democratic politicians and by liberal Hollywood players, censorship is a useful tool to stifle dissent.
Mr. Ziegler's documentary is a cautionary tale on how the mainstream media play a crucial role in supporting Democratic causes and how liberal blogs bolster the media and Hollywood's leftward attack. No film better illuminates how censorship is operative in modern America and is utilized by the very people who demand absolute creative freedom.
If you can't find "The Path to 9/11" or the documentary that spells out the crime of its suppression, perhaps you should look out for Matt Damon's latest project, "The People Speak," featuring "dramatic live readings" from America-bashing usual suspects Danny Glover and Eddie Vedder, and honoring Howard Zinn, the celebrity left's favorite revisionist historian and the Marxist professor who inspired the Robin William's character in "Good Will Hunting."
Maybe Sarah Palin can give it a look on the campaign trail and understand why a beautiful and accomplished woman from Alaska poses such a threat to Hollywood and the Democratic Party - and why so many people in heartland America are rooting for her to win.
* Andrew Breitbart is the founder of the news Web site breitbart.com and is co-author of "Hollywood Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon - the Case Against Celebrity."
LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 15, 2008 Monday
Catch as catch can;
Obama looks to November
BYLINE: By Armstrong Williams, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. Barack Obama's triumph over Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries will undoubtedly go down as one of the most shocking upsets in American electoral history. Mr. Obama, a dark horse (no pun intended) with no national track record, was able to beat the formidable Clinton machine because he was a phantom. He confounded his rivals because he provided little of substance for them to stick their swords into. Because he lacked a track record, he could switch directions easily without seeming incongruous. He was flexible, and could not be locked in or nailed down on anything.
Along comes Gov. Sarah Palin, who, like Mr. Obama, is also an unknown. Like Mr. Obama, she has a razor-thin track record on issues of substance; and her appearance on the national stage came almost out of nowhere. Thus far, her very presence has sucked the air out of Mr. Obama's sails. He finds himself at a loss for words, veering sharply off script into ad hominem attacks that are so very uncharacteristic of him. Yet he finds that Mrs. Palin is proving difficult to impale.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Palin has contented herself with making her points, and then stepping back with confident smugness. Thus far, she has stayed firmly on message. Borrowing a chapter from Mr. Obama's playbook, she has resisted the urge to respond to her detractors, refute the rumors or even humor her critics in any way. Instead she has merely basked in the glow of her ascension and allowed her charisma and charm to speak for itself.
How do Mr. Obama and Co. intend to beat this phantom menace? Or better yet, how would Mr. Obama fight the mirror image of himself? Some have suggested that the only way he can do this is by clearly defining Mrs. Palin on his terms; that is, by throwing enough mud in her direction that it begins to stick. Yet, everything we know about Mrs. Obama thus far suggests that his greatest strength is defense and not offense. His acceptance speech before the Democratic convention, his most aggressive attack thus far on Mr. McCain, was at best an attack from a defensive position. He attacked only on issues over which he has been attacked (experience, love of country, etc.), but did not open up any new fronts in the battle. He did not thrust, but merely parried.
One senses in observing him that perhaps he is afraid of his own power; he may have adapted his defensive position because he is afraid of summoning forces of negativity within himself. He may not have found a way of exhibiting aggression without becoming vindictive. But this just will not work going down the stretch to the election. Everyone knows that this will be a dogfight, and Mrs. Palin has signaled as much by referring to herself as a pit bull with lipstick. If indeed she proves to be a pit bull, her habits and instincts will become readily apparent. Mr. Obama must figure these out and play the matador. He must test her discipline while keeping his cool.
While Mr. Obama must be seen as the cool, calm and dignified matador, he has to employ his allies in a successful effort to goad Mrs. Palin into defining herself before she is ready. Sen. Joe Biden and the Clintons have to be put to use for this purpose. Thus far, neither of the Clintons has dedicated any effort to dismantling Mrs. Palin. Some see the Clintons' reluctance to go after Mrs. Palin as a play for more support from Mr. Obama, possibly for his promise of support for a Clinton bid in 2016. Some have rejoiced in the notion that the Clintons secretly want Mrs. Obama to lose because they would have another chance to run in 2012.
However, in order to secure the Clintons' fervent support, Mr. Obama would have to convince them of the likelihood of a different scenario. He would have to highlight the fact that there is a betting chance that Mr. McCain, who has already suffered multiple outbreaks of skin cancer, may not survive the first term; an event which would elevate Mrs. Palin to the presidency. If that happened, Mrs. Palin would steal Mrs. Clinton's thunder as the first female president and severely damage her chances of winning the election in 2012 against a female incumbent. If Mr. McCain survives two terms in office, Mrs. Palin will have gained all of the experience she needs to make a convincing case that she is more qualified than Mrs. Clinton, as she actually worked in the executive office, and was not merely a presidential spouse. This, Mr. Obama would have to argue, would spell doom to Mrs. Clinton's chances of winning in 2016.
Mr. Obama may feel that hitching his wagon to the Clintons' ambitions will unnecessarily constrain his own choices. He feels somewhat reluctant about entering the presidency already indebted and leveraged. But this is the price he has to pay for victory in November. After all, no one makes it to the top without help - not even a phantom.
Armstrong Williams' column for The Washington Times appears on Mondays.
LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Associated Press State & Local Wire
September 15, 2008 Monday 5:53 PM GMT
Obama still has uphill fight in battleground Va.
BYLINE: By BOB LEWIS, Associated Press Writer
Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are investing unprecedented time and money in Virginia, a state both parties have written off for decades as GOP turf.
But recent polls, the state's demographics and its history in presidential elections make clear that if Virginia really is a battleground, it's Obama who has the uphill fight.
Even Obama's most ardent and influential Virginia backer acknowledges that the Illinois senator faces a difficult but not impossible task to become the first Democrat to carry the state since 1964.
"He is an underdog because this 44-year drought did not happen by accident," said Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, one of Obama's earliest backers and a finalist to be his running mate.
Republicans excited their voters in Virginia with McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, Kaine said. Even so, he added, Obama's supporters still have plenty of energy.
Frank Atkinson, a longtime GOP adviser and author of two books on the party's ascendancy in Virginia, said McCain probably will prevail because of his edge among voters tied to the state's large military and defense industry interests.
"If Virginia is close, it probably means this state won't be a battleground because Obama has probably won the election handily," Atkinson said.
Virginia is not the same Republican redoubt it was eight years ago when George Bush beat Democrat Al Gore in the state by 8 percentage points, and Republican George Allen swept Democratic incumbent Sen. Chuck Robb from office. That election briefly gave the GOP control of every statewide elected office and both legislative chambers.
Since then, Kaine and his Democratic predecessor, Mark R. Warner, have dominated two gubernatorial elections and Allen was denied re-election by Republican-turned-Democrat Jim Webb.
"You've got more Democratic voters there, probably more independent-minded voters who are behaving more Democratically," said David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager.
Mo Elleithee, a Democratic strategist and veteran of three Virginia campaigns, said Obama is to be credited for putting up a fight in Virginia.
"Eight years ago, the thought of a Democrat even setting foot in Virginia in a presidential race was a totally foreign concept," Elleithee said.
Obama trailed McCain by 6 percentage points in a CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corp. poll of 920 registered Virginia voters last week. Other polls have shown a McCain advantage of from 3 to 5 points.
Obama is contesting areas normally not amenable to Democrats in presidential elections, including rural and overwhelmingly white southwestern Virginia, a region reeling from disappearing manufacturing jobs.
"Compare that to 2000, when Al Gore didn't even cross the Potomac," said Elleithee.
Warner, Kaine and Webb won with variations of the same script that Obama is now using: undercut Republican strength in rural areas, energize Democratic-voting urban areas and win in the moderate, educated and affluent suburbs.
Warner, who left office in 2006 with record high job-approval ratings, is strongly favored in his U.S. Senate race this year, and having him on the Virginia ballot can't hurt Obama.
But none of the Virginia Democratic triumphs came in a presidential election year, and things are different when the White House is on the line.
In the seven presidential elections since 1980, an average of 76 percent of the state's registered voters turned out. In the comparable seven gubernatorial elections, the average turnout has been 55 percent.
Republican-voting religious conservatives turn out heavily for presidential elections, partly to support candidates they believe will nominate Supreme Court justices hostile to abortion, gay rights and limits on school prayer.
Palin's addition to the ticket sent the signal those conservatives were looking for, said Ken Hutcheson, a veteran Republican strategist who has led numerous statewide campaigns, including Bush's 2004 re-election effort.
"Her nomination ensured they will come to the polls full force," Hutcheson said.
Virginia voters also found in Warner, Kaine and Webb a portfolio and a message more aligned to the state's moderate political tastes than Obama's.
"What often hurts the Democrats in Virginia is the national campaigns are focused more on the big swing states Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan with a message that hasn't been the best in Virginia," said Virginia Commonwealth University political scientist Robert D. Holsworth.
Obama still could defy the old electoral formulas. He has opened about 40 campaign offices across the state. His supporters have fanned out to register tens of thousands of new voters by the Oct. 6 deadline.
Registration drives, however, don't always translate into votes. Democrats led a voting drive that accounted for many of the 270,000 Virginia voters newly registered in 2004, but John Kerry lost Virginia by 9 percentage points.
LOAD-DATE: September 16, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire
Copyright 2008 Associated Press
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 14, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
CAMPAIGN 2008: THE ISSUES
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-10
Here's a look at where the presidential candidates who have qualified to be on Virginia's ballot stand on various issues.
The candidates are listed in the order in which they will appear on the ballot.
Barack Obama
Party: Democratic
Running mate: Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Experience: U.S. Senate, 2005-present; Illinois state Senate, 1997-2004; constitutional-law instructor, University of Chicago, 1993-2004; director, Project VOTE in Illinois, 1992; former practicing attorney
Age: 47 (born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu)
John McCain
Party: Republican
Running mate: Sarah Palin
Experience: U.S. Senate, 1987-present; Republican candidate for president, 2000; U.S. House of Representatives, 1983-87; director, Navy Senate Liaison Office in Washington, 1977-81; captain, Navy pilot, 1977; prisoner of war in Hanoi, Vietnam, 1967-73; commissioned, U.S. Navy, 1958
Age: 72 (born Aug. 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone)
Chuck Baldwin
Party: Independent Green
Running mate: Darrell L. Castle
Experience: founder/minister, Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., 1975-present; Constitution Party candidate for vice president, 2004; started radio call-in show, 1994; Pensacola chairman and then state chairman of the Florida Moral Majority, 1980-84
Age: 56 (born May 3, 1952, in La Porte, Ind.)
Bob Barr
Party: Libertarian
Running mate: Wayne A. Root
Experience: Republican member of U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia, 1995-2003; attorney, 1978-86 and 1991-94; anti-drug coordinator for Justice Department, southeastern U.S., 1986-90; CIA analyst, 1971-78
Age: 59 (born Nov. 5, 1948, in Iowa City, Iowa)
Cynthia McKinney
Party: Green
Running mate: Rosa Clemente
Experience: 1993-2003 and 2005-07, Democratic member of U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia (first black woman elected to Congress from Georgia); Georgia state House of Representatives, 1988-92; diplomatic fellow, Spelman College, 1984
Age: 53 (born March 17, 1955, in Atlanta)
Ralph Nader
Party: independent
Running mate: Matt Gonzalez
Experience: candidate for president, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004; 1958-present, attorney, consumer advocate, founder of Center for Auto Safety, Project for Corporate Responsibility, Clean Water Action Project and Public Interest Research Group
Age: 74 (born Feb. 27, 1934, in Winsted, Conn.)
ABORTION
Obama: Favors abortion rights and opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision.
McCain: Opposes abortion rights. Would not seek constitutional amendment to ban abortion.
Baldwin: Supports overturning Roe v. Wade
Barr: Believes government should leave the question to each person.
McKinney: Supports abortion rights.
Nader: Supports abortion rights.
AFGHANISTAN
Obama: Would add about 7,000 troops to the U.S. force of 36,000, bringing the reinforcements from Iraq. Has threatened unilateral attack on high-value terrorist targets in Pakistan as they become exposed, "if Pakistan cannot or will not act" against them.
McCain: Would add three more brigades to U.S. forces and double the size of the Afghan army to 160,000. Would crack down on narcotics trafficking and encourage cooperation between tribes on the border with Pakistan.
Baldwin: Opposes most foreign involvement and would not engage in nation-building, empire-building or interventionism.
Barr: Favors withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.
McKinney: Supports an end to the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Nader: Says that after Sept. 11, he would have organized a modest multinational force and sent it into Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE
Obama: Plans to raise private money for general election, despite his proposal last year to accept public financing and its spending limits if the Republican nominee does, too. Refuses to accept money from federal lobbyists and has instructed the Democratic National Committee to do the same for its joint victory fund. Does accept money from state lobbyists and from family members of federal lobbyists.
McCain: Co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law. Plans to run his general campaign with public money and within its spending limits. Has urged Obama to do the same. Accepts campaign contributions from lobbyists.
Baldwin: Opposes stricter limits on political campaign funds.
Barr: Supports abolishing tax-financed subsidies to candidates or parties and the repeal of all laws that restrict voluntary financing of election campaigns.
McKinney: Proposes caps on spending and contributions, both nationally and locally. Supports full public financing of elections.
Nader: Supports public funding of campaigns. Does not accept contributions from commercial interests or political-action committees.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Obama: Backs 10-year, $150 billion program to produce "climate-friendly" energy supplies, to be paid for with a carbon auction requiring businesses to bid competitively for the right to pollute - plan is aimed at cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. Joined McCain in sponsoring earlier legislation that would set mandatory caps on greenhouse-gas emissions. Supports tougher fuel-efficiency standards.
McCain: Broke with President Bush on global warming. Led Senate effort to cap greenhouse-gas emissions. Favors plan that would see emissions cut 60 percent by 2050. Proposes a market-based approach that would set caps on greenhouse gases and offer credits to industries. Supports tougher fuel-efficiency standards.
Baldwin: Opposes Kyoto Protocol.
Barr: Says initiatives must maintain economic growth. Supports lowering government barriers to private research and development in order to find technological innovations.
McKinney: Calls for short- and long-term cuts to greenhouse-gas emissions. Favors programs to encourage U.S. energy conservation. Opposes nuclear energy. Opposes biofuels that require land needed to grow food.
Nader: Supports Kyoto Protocol.
EDUCATION
Obama: An $18 billion plan would encourage, but not mandate, universal pre-kindergarten. Would have teacher pay raises tied to, although not based solely on, test scores. Backs overhaul of No Child Left Behind law to measure student progress better, make room for noncore subjects such as music and art, and be less punitive toward failing schools. Supports a tax credit to pay up to $4,000 of college costs for students who perform 100 hours of community service a year.
McCain: Favors parental choice of schools, including vouchers for private schools when approved by local officials, and the right of parents to choose home-schooling. Wants more money for community college education.
Baldwin: Does not believe the federal government has a role in education and would disband the Department of Education. Supports voucher program. Supports tax relief for home-schoolers.
Barr: Supports the abolishment of the Department of Education, elimination of federal grants and regulations, and returning management of schools to states and localities for greater accountability and parental involvement.
McKinney: Favors repeal of the No Child Left Behind law and a federal policy that ensures equal access to quality education. Opposes vouchers.
Nader: Says an investment in K-12 education will reduce poverty. Would emphasize civics and consumer education in schools, rather than standardized testing.
ENERGY
Obama: Would consider limited increase in offshore drilling. Opposes drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Proposes windfall-profits tax on largest oil companies to pay for energy rebate of up to $1,000. Open to tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for short-term relief from high energy costs. Global-warming plan would increase energy costs.
McCain: Favors increased offshore drilling and federal money to help build 45 nuclear-power reactors by 2030. Opposes drilling in Arctic refuge. Would suspend purchases of foreign oil for strategic reserve during periods of high prices to reduce demand. Would spend $2 billion annually on clean-coal technology and promote market for wind, solar and hydro power. Global-warming plan would increase energy costs.
Baldwin: Supports drilling for domestic oil and building more refineries and nuclear plants.
Barr: Favors exploration and production of domestic resources offshore and in the Arctic refuge. Proposes eliminating all energy pricing and subsidies, instead letting the free market determine prices.
McKinney: Encourages policies that shift U.S. toward clean energy and a 50 percent reduction in energy use within 20 years. Opposes development of alternative fuels (coal or crops, for example) that would harm environment. Opposes drilling offshore and in the Arctic refuge.
Nader: Supports a carbon tax, ending subsidies to oil, nuclear, electric and coal-mining interests and investing in renewable energy sources.
GAY MARRIAGE
Obama: Opposes constitutional amendment to ban it. Supports civil unions; says states should decide about marriage. Switched positions in 2004 and now supports repeal of Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition of same-sex marriages and gives states the right to refuse to recognize such marriages.
McCain: Opposes constitutional amendment to ban it. Says same-sex couples should be allowed to enter into legal agreements for insurance and similar benefits, and states should decide about marriage. Supports the Defense of Marriage Act.
Baldwin: Believes marriage is between one man and one woman. Supports gay-marriage amendment but feels marriage is the concern of religion and not government.
Barr: Opposes constitutional amendment to ban it and says states should decide.
McKinney: Supports right of individuals to choose partners regardless of sexual orientation. Supports recognition of equal rights to gay, lesbian, transsexual or bisexual citizens in housing, jobs, medical benefits, marriage and child custody.
Nader: Supports equal rights for gays and lesbians. Supports same-sex marriage and opposes federal marriage amendment.
GUN CONTROL
Obama: Voted to leave gun makers and dealers open to lawsuits. Also, as Illinois state lawmaker, supported ban on all forms of semiautomatic weapons and tighter state restrictions generally on firearms.
McCain: Voted against ban on assault-type weapons but in favor of requiring background checks at gun shows. Voted to shield gun-makers and dealers from civil suits.
Baldwin: Opposes gun control.
Barr: Opposes any government restrictions on firearms or ammunition.
McKinney: Supports the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and a waiting period and records search before gun sales.
Nader: Supports measures such as trigger locks, strong law enforcement to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, gun-owner education and licensing, and the banning of some weapons.
HEALTH CARE
Obama: Wants mandatory coverage for children, no mandate for adults. Aims for universal coverage by requiring employers to share costs of insuring workers and by offering coverage similar to that in plan for federal employees. Would raise taxes on wealthier families to pay the cost.
McCain: Wants $2,500 refundable tax credit for individuals, $5,000 for families, to make health insurance more affordable. In gaining the tax credit, workers could not deduct the portion of their workplace health insurance paid by their employers. Would not mandate universal coverage.
Baldwin: Opposes government regulation and subsidies. Supports proposals for employee-controlled "family coverage" health-insurance plans based on cash-value life insurance principles.
Barr: Individuals could determine level of health care, insurance coverage, providers and treatment they want, including end-of-life decisions.
McKinney: Supports universal-access, single-payer system with lifetime benefits and the freedom to choose a health-care provider.
Nader: Favors single-payer public health insurance system coupled with private delivery of services.
IMMIGRATION
Obama: Voted for 2006 bill offering legal status to illegal immigrants subject to conditions, including English proficiency and payment of back taxes and fines. Voted for border fence.
McCain: Sponsored 2006 bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S., work and apply to become legal residents after learning English, paying fines and back taxes, and clearing a background check. Now says he would secure the border first. Voted for border fence.
Baldwin: Opposes amnesty, social services or path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Would end birthright citizenship. Would seal borders through construction of a border fence and/or use of whatever force is necessary.
Barr: Would deter illegal border crossings and end government benefits and services for illegal immigrants. Supports constitutional amendment to prevent children born to illegal immigrants from automatically becoming citizens.
McKinney: Supports amnesty program and path to documentation for illegal immigrants. Encourages improved relations with Canada and Mexico and supports border passes for all citizens of Mexico and Canada whose identity can be verified.
Nader: Supports raising minimum wage to make jobs more attractive to American workers and providing work permits for people who come to work for short periods.
IRAN
Obama: Initially said he would meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions; now says he is not sure "Ahmadinejad is the right person to meet with right now." Says direct diplomacy with Iranian leaders would give U.S. more credibility to press for tougher international sanctions. Says he would intensify diplomatic pressure on Tehran before Israel feels the need to take unilateral military action against Iranian nuclear facilities.
McCain: Favors tougher sanctions. Opposes direct high-level talks with Ahmadinejad. Considers military action an option but would consult with congressional leaders before taking action.
Baldwin: Does not see Iran as threat to the U.S.
Barr: Favors diplomacy and free trade instead of military action.
McKinney: Opposed President Bush's threats to attack and opposes war with Iran.
Nader: Supports full-court diplomacy.
IRAQ
Obama: Spoke against war at start and opposed troop increase. Voted against one major military spending bill in May 2007; otherwise voted in favor of money to support the war. Says his plan would complete withdrawal of combat troops in 16 months. Initially said a timetable for completing withdrawal would be irresponsible without knowing what facts he would face in office.
McCain: Opposes scheduling a troop withdrawal, saying latest strategy is succeeding. Supported decision to go to war but was early critic of the manner in which administration pursued it. Was key backer of the troop increase. Willing to have permanent U.S. peacekeeping forces in Iraq.
Baldwin: Opposes the war in Iraq. Favors a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Barr: Opposed the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Opposes the use of taxpayer money to pay for rebuilding foreign nations. Calls for end to the war and withdrawal of U.S. troops.
McKinney: Supports immediate withdrawal of troops and advisers, and cutting off all war funding.
Nader: Proposes rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
SOCIAL SECURITY
Obama: Would raise payroll tax on wealthiest by applying it to portion of income over $250,000 (now, payroll tax is applied to income up to $102,000). Rules out raising retirement age for benefits.
McCain: Supports supplementing Social Security with individual investment accounts. Prefers slowing benefits to raising taxes.
Baldwin: Supports phasing out Social Security system.
Barr: Says government should emphasize private retirement accounts. Also would allow new workers entering Social Security to leave the entitlement system.
McKinney: Opposes privatization of Social Security.
Nader: Opposes privatization through personal Social Security accounts.
TAXES
Obama: Would raise income taxes on wealthiest and their capital gains and dividends taxes, and raise corporate taxes. Backs $80 billion in tax breaks mainly for poor workers and elderly, including tripling Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credit for larger families. Would eliminate tax-filing requirement for older workers making less than $50,000. Supports mortgage-interest credit for lower-income homeowners who do not take the mortgage-interest deduction because they do not itemize their deductions.
McCain: Voted against Bush tax-cut laws but now says those tax cuts, expiring in 2010, should be permanent. Proposes cutting corporate tax rate to 25 percent. Would double child deduction from $3,500 to $7,000 and repeal alternative minimum tax. Would raise exemption on estate tax to $10 million and reduce the tax rate to 15 percent. Proposes a three-fifths majority in Congress be required to raise taxes.
Baldwin: Would end income, inheritance and property taxes and implement a 10 percent tax on all imports.
Barr: Supports reforming the tax code and reducing Americans' tax burden, including the elimination of the estate tax and capital-gains tax. Wants to reduce government spending and corporate taxes.
McKinney: Supports progressive rates on sales, corporate and income taxes that shift the burden from lower-income citizens. Supports the elimination of tax loopholes.
Nader: Says the tax code is skewed toward the wealthy and corporations, and reform should pinch basic necessities the least.
* * * * *
SOURCES: The Associated Press, ontheissues.org, cnn.com, news archives, candidates' Web sites
LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 14, 2008 Sunday
Regional Edition
Campaign, and Complaints, Heat Up
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. B06
Election frenzy is at full pitch; incoming partisan fire was smoking in my inbox when I returned from a Wyoming hiking trip.
Unsurprisingly, the No. 1 topic was John McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, a rifle-toting, moose-skinning, snowmobiling, Bible-believing, Alaskan mother of five -- as exotic to this area as Barack Obama's biracial heritage and his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia would be elsewhere.
First, readers complained that an all-Obama front page on Aug. 29, the day after his nomination acceptance speech, wasn't matched by an all-McCain front page on Sept. 5, the day after his speech. Ed Thiede, assistant managing editor for the news desk, said that happened because "Aug. 28 was a day with less news competing for Page 1, while Sept. 4 was a more competitive day."
Then McCain and Palin's large Fairfax County rally was on the Metro section front page Thursday; a June 6 rally for Obama at Nissan Pavilion was on Page A1. Thiede said, "We had a busier day with more competing for A1 play Wednesday, including a main art package commemorating the opening of the Sept. 11 memorial." These are logical answers in a newsroom, but they don't cut it with Republican-leaning readers, especially when, as I've reported, Obama has had a preponderance of Page 1 stories and photos throughout the paper.
Many readers think The Post is trying to skewer Palin. While some opinion writers have, news coverage has not been overtly negative. The Post's duty is to report anything pertinent about Palin -- the least known of the candidates. She did have changing views on Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere." An item in The Trail political blog overdid it in using the word "slash" to describe her line-item veto of funds for pregnant teenagers; Palin did cut some proposed funds, but, overall, the program got more money.
Speaking of overdoing it, a political cartoon by Pat Oliphant that appeared on washingtonpost.com Wednesday prompted complaints from about 350 readers who said he lampooned their faith. The cartoon showed Palin speaking in tongues, an aspect of worship in some Pentecostal churches, and then God telling St. Peter that he didn't understand what she was saying -- "All I can hear is some dam' right-wing politician spouting gibberish."
Readers were right to complain; I will deal with political cartooning in another column. Political cartoons and comics aren't selected at washingtonpost.com the way they are for The Post in print; they are automatically posted.
Oliphant's Universal Press Syndicate advertises him this way: "No one is safe from the acid brush of Pat Oliphant.. a master of what he calls 'confrontational art' . . . [who] spares neither the liberal nor conservative, sinner nor saint."
Some readers complained that The Post prominently displayed the story reporting the pregnancy of Palin's 17-year-old daughter, Bristol. Yolanda R. Smith of Crofton wrote that "what this has to do with her public persona is beyond me." She said the coverage "reeks of elitism, chauvinism -- after all the only competent woman must be a liberal one." The McCain campaign released the information, and Bristol and her boyfriend were on stage the last night of the convention. That was news.
Last week, most of the complaints were about a story Tuesday by James V. Grimaldi and Karl Vick about per-diem payments that Palin and family members received while living in their home in Wasilla, an Anchorage suburb. Palin goes to the capital in Juneau only during legislative sessions.
Many readers thought it was a non-story; others, like Bill Phelps of Indianapolis, objected to the headline -- "Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home" -- and called it, as Phelps did, "inaccurate and misleading, as the article repeatedly emphasizes Gov. Palin acted within the law." The story's third paragraph noted the legality of the payments. It was a legitimate story; the headline was accurate.
Other stories were straightforward -- a Sept. 2 Style piece headlined "Gov. Mom"; a Sept. 7 story on how Palin weaves family and politics; an article Wednesday on how Palin has energized female voters; a Style story Thursday on her local fans. Editorial writer Ruth Marcus wrote a sensitive commentary on how Palin has sparked conversation about balancing motherhood and work.
Glenn Merritt of Vienna thought that TV critic Tom Shales and TV columnist Lisa de Moraes, both of whom are paid to write opinion, took "cheap shots" at Palin's convention speech. Shales said it was filled with "malicious zeal" and was "crudely effective"; he called Obama's convention speech "refreshingly combative." While de Moraes wrote that Palin's speech was "venom-infused," she also wrote it was "electrifying" and "riveting." Chris Cillizza, author of washingtonpost.com's political blog, The Fix, rated her speech No. 1 of all the convention speeches.
The danger in campaign reporting is focusing on the day-to-day events, polls and gaffes and not on what most readers want to know: Who are these people, what do they stand for and how would they govern?
In biography, The Post did an excellent job in special sections by David Maraniss about Obama's parents and his childhood and adolescent years and by Michael Leahy on McCain's Navy family and how it shaped his life. Convention coverage was fair and even.
Still, there's much reporting to be done before Election Day.
Deborah Howell can be reached at 202-334-7582 or at ombudsman@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: September 14, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 14, 2008 Sunday
Suburban Edition
Group With Swift Boat Alumni Readies Ads Attacking Obama;
-
BYLINE: Matthew Mosk and Chris Cillizza; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A07
A new group financed by a Texas billionaire and organized by some of the same political operatives and donors behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Sen. John F. Kerry in 2004 plans to begin running television ads attacking Barack Obama, a signal that outside groups may play a larger role than anticipated in the closing days of the presidential race.
The American Issues Project has amassed a multimillion-dollar fund, and the group is putting the final touches on an eleventh-hour campaign targeting the Democratic presidential nominee, sources said.
"We expect to be doing both issues and express advocacy between now and November and beyond," said Christian Pinkston, a spokesman for the group.
The effort could mark a sharp turn in what has been an unusually quiet year for outside political groups. At this point in 2004, such groups had already spent about $100 million dollars on television commercials attacking Kerry (D-Mass.) and President Bush, but they have devoted $8 million to ads so far in this election cycle.
The resurgence on the right appears as though it will not go unanswered. The Service Employees International Union is set to unveil a multimillion-dollar television campaign on Monday, and other liberal and Democratic-aligned groups are rushing to establish financing for efforts over the final weeks of the campaign.
At the outset of the general election, both Obama and Republican nominee John McCain called on outside groups to stay on the sidelines, hoping to steer funds to their own campaigns and party committees. Several initial attempts to organize independent groups for the 2008 presidential contest fizzled early on. But as the back and forth has grown more intense in recent weeks, both campaigns have signaled that their opposition to such efforts is softening.
AIP emerged on the scene in August, airing controversial anti-Obama ads in four battleground states -- Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan -- that sought to raise questions about his ties to William Ayers, a member of the Vietnam War-era radical group known as the Weathermen. The ad was sponsored entirely -- at a cost of more than $2 million -- by Harold Simmons, a Dallas-based businessman who also helped fund the Swift boat activities four years ago.
The new group was launched by Chris LaCivita, who was intimately involved in the Swift boat campaign, and Tony Feather, one of the co-founders of Progress for America, which spent tens of millions backing Bush in 2004.
According to sources familiar with AIP, it has secured significant financial backing from a handful of major donors and is planning more ads like the Ayers commercial in the weeks between now and Election Day.
Four years ago, mid-September might have been too late to organize for November. But the rules for outside groups changed after a recent Supreme Court opinion that loosened restrictions on corporate and union electioneering within 60 days of the general election. That enabled groups such as AIP, which is organized as a nonprofit corporation, more leeway to launch last-minute attack ads.
On the Democratic side, much of that effort appears to be falling to labor unions and a handful of well-known advocacy groups such as MoveOn.org and the Sierra Club. In the spring, a coalition of liberal groups that included the AFL-CIO announced plans to spend $350 million on political activities during the 2008 campaign season, but they have been slow in coming together.
Ilyse Hogue, the campaign director for MoveOn.org confirmed that the group will spearhead an ad campaign focused on what has emerged as the central theme of the fall campaign, the question of which candidate is better equipped to bring change to Washington.
"The fight is over whose plan for change is real, whose is genuine. And we're looking to put that in front of voters," Hogue said. "When you look at McCain and [GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah] Palin's ties to Big Oil, it doesn't pass the laugh test that they are for change."
Having spent recent elections watching conservative groups bombard Democratic candidates by taking a disciplined message to the television and talk radio airwaves, the leaders of several major left-leaning groups said they are ready to answer back.
"After years of watching the other side do this, it's finally something we've really gotten strong at," Hogue said.
But Republicans appear to have a head start. In April, Simmons, a corporate tycoon who had spent heavily on the Swift boat campaign, began holding meetings with other Swift boat donors to discuss renewing their effort for 2008-- meetings that included input from Bush's former strategist, Karl Rove.
At one of the meetings, Simmons presented his plans to oilman T. Boone Pickens, another financier of the Swift boat efforts, at a gathering in Simmons's Dallas office, Pickens said. Pickens ultimately chose not to get involved but said several others decided to forge ahead. Rove is not directly involved in the American Issues Project but has provided advice to a group targeting Democratic candidates for the Senate and House, known as Freedom's Watch.
American Issues Project is organized as a qualified 501(c)4 under Internal Revenue Service guidelines. As such an entity, AIP must use 60 percent of all its funding to make issues-based appeals but can use the remaining 40 percent to directly advocate for or against the election of a candidate. Any money spent for express advocacy must be reported through the Federal Election Commission, meaning that donors to the group will eventually have their identities revealed.
LOAD-DATE: September 14, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 14, 2008 Sunday
Suburban Edition
Obama Points to the Issues;
Ignore Attacks, Democrat Implores
BYLINE: Jonathan Weisman; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A10
DATELINE: MANCHESTER, N.H., Sept. 13
Sen. Barack Obama brought his newly aggressive campaign against Republican opponent John McCain to an open-air rally here, castigating the senator from Arizona as a latecomer to the cause of change and imploring about 8,000 Granite State citizens to ignore the GOP's barrage of negative attacks.
"The McCain-Palin ticket, they don't want to debate the Obama-Biden ticket on the issues, because they're running on eight more years," Obama said under a sunny sky at Veterans Memorial Park. "They will try to distort my record, and they will try to undermine your trust in what the Democrats want to do. . . . But the times are too serious for those strategies to work this time."
After a long period of focusing his attention on more intimate events in high school gyms and work sites that communicated the feel of a candidate meeting face-to-face with voters, Obama returned to large crowds with the Manchester rally. The McCain campaign had long criticized such big events as a form of "celebrity" worship but has itself adopted the format since the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket.
Saturday's event was toned down as Hurricane Ike ravaged Texas. An appearance by running mate Joseph R. Biden Jr. was scrapped. A scheduled appearance on "Saturday Night Live" was canceled.
Obama opened his rally here with an appeal for help for the Red Cross and hurricane victims in Texas. "During difficult times, during moments of tragedy, the American people come together," he said.
But unlike his response during Hurricane Gustav, Obama did not declare a temporary cease-fire -- an acknowledgment of the shifting dynamics of the presidential campaign since the end of the Democratic convention. Instead, Obama quickly pivoted from sympathy for the victims of Ike to a more aggressive speech focused squarely on the struggling economy, saying that "there are a lot of quiet storms going on all across America" in the form of job losses, spiraling health-care and college costs, and schools that are "underfunded and uninspired."
"People are concerned not just for their immediate well-being, but they're concerned about what happened to that promise, what happened to that dream? Are we going to be the first generation that passes on a country that is a little less prosperous, a little less unified and a little meaner than the last generation?" he said, intoning the phrase that has become his theme since the Democratic convention. "We are here to say enough is enough."
McCain, who was off the campaign trail Saturday, issued a statement about Hurricane Ike expressing concern that "there may have been a substantial loss of life." He added: "We do know that the economic impact from this storm will be severe. . . . But our priority now must be to help the relief effort in any way we can, and to pray for the safety of those in the storm's path."
Meanwhile, his campaign, under fire for the negative tone it has employed over the last week, tried to shift that criticism to Obama.
"It says a lot about Barack Obama's judgment that while his campaign canceled his appearance on 'Saturday Night Live' and his running mate stayed home, Obama went ahead and delivered a series of scathing personal attacks," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, calling the speech "a new low." McCain was off the campaign trail on Saturday but also planned to stump in New Hampshire on Sunday.
The Obama campaign did not let up.
"We will take no lectures from John McCain, who is cynically running the sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern presidential campaign history," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.
As the senator from Illinois spoke, the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee officially highlighted a campaign commercial castigating McCain as a tool of Washington lobbyists. "His campaign manager lobbies for corporations outsourcing American jobs," the ad states, flashing an image of McCain with top aide Rick Davis. "The campaign chairman he picked last year . . . a bank lobbyist," it continues, with an image of McCain and former Texas senator Phil Gramm. "If seven of McCain's top advisers are lobbyists, who do you think will run his White House?"
Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod insisted that Palin has energized conservative Republicans mainly in Republican states that were going to vote for McCain regardless of whom he selected.
"There's not going to be a person in America who by the end of these next weeks will not understand who represents change and who represents more of the same," Axelrod boasted.
LOAD-DATE: September 14, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Chris Carlson -- Associated Press; Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama arrives for an open-air rally at Veterans Memorial Park in Manchester, N.H.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
September 14, 2008 Sunday
Obama warns of GOP attacks;
McCain's team criticizes 'ferocity' of foe as 'new low'
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
DATELINE: MANCHESTER, N.H.
Sen. Barack Obama told voters not to fall for Republican attempts to "distort my record," keeping up his attacks on Sen. John McCain, whose campaign criticized the Democrat for talking politics during a hurricane.
During a rally that was scaled back as Hurricane Ike swamped Texas, the Democratic presidential nominee said Republicans "will try to undermine your trust in what the Democrats are trying to do," but warned voters in the blue-leaning swing state that "the times are too serious for those strategies to work."
"If we don't [start] the changes that we need starting right now, then our children may not have the same kind of America that we want them to have," Mr. Obama said.
Aides for Mr. McCain, who had no public events scheduled as his running mate hit the campaign trail solo for the first time, responded that Mr. Obama "showed zero restraint in the ferocity of his attacks," calling it a "new low."
"It says a lot about Barack Obama's judgment that while his campaign canceled his appearance on 'Saturday Night Live' and his running mate stayed home, Obama went ahead and delivered a series of scathing personal attacks," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.
Team McCain cited news reports quoting Obama aides speculating that their boss would go easier on Mr. McCain because of the storm and stories about Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. scrapping his plan to attend the rally.
The Obama campaign scoffed at the statement.
"We will take no lectures from John McCain, who is cynically running the sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern presidential campaignhistory. His discredited ads with disgusting lies are running all over the country today. He runs a campaign not worthy of the office he is seeking," spokesman Bill Burton said.
For her part, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Mr. McCain's running mate, left her home state Saturday for her first solo campaign venture, telling supporters at a farewell rally that she will return at the end of the campaign.
"We've got a little travel coming the next 52 days," Mrs. Palin told a cheering crowd of more than 2,000 gathered at the city convention center.
"But I'll be home in November, and I'd really like to bring my friend," she said, referring to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential candidate.
She moved on to Nevada for a rally and is expected as early as next week to rejoin Mr. McCain on the campaign trail.
Unlike his retooled events during Hurricane Gustav at the beginning of the month, Mr. Obama continued to talk politics and slam his rival at the Saturday morning rally, which attracted 8,000 from New Hampshire and surrounding states.
Mr. Obama reprised his recent attacks on Mr. McCain, saying that the Arizona senator should be honored for his military service, but that when it comes to the plight of the middle class, he "doesn't get it."
"He is out of touch with the American people," Mr. Obama said, to cheers.
He said Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin "don't have new ideas" to help people with health care or education.
With just 52 days before the election, campaign rhetoric remained hot as Team Obama launched a new assault on Mr. McCain's ties to lobbyists with a McLobbyist.com Web site and campy ad suggesting that voting for the Republican is a gamble because he would rather serve special interests.
Obama chief strategist David Axelrod defended a campaign ad mocking Mr. McCain as computer illiterate as a "metaphor" of where Mr. McCain's view would take the country.
"It's a relevant ad," he said. "The question is, who's in touch. It speaks to who's going to move this country forward."
Mr. Axelrod said the ad goes beyond computer savvy.
"The president of the United States needs to be in touch and understand what's going on in the lives the of American people," he said, adding Mr. McCain seems to be "sitting on the back of the truck and looking backwards."
The Obama campaign e-mailed to its press list a Boston Globe story saying that Mrs. Palin did not visit Iraq as the McCain campaign had initially claimed. Instead, she visited a border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait.
Obama aides also sent reporters a Bloomberg story questioning the validity of crowd counts at recent McCain-Palin rallies under the subject line: "Is there anything they don't lie about?"
The Obama campaign also penned a long memo to reporters detailing what it called misstatements and half-truths from the McCain campaign about Mrs. Palin's record on fiscal issues, earmarks and policy beliefs titled "Unraveling the myth of the Straight Talk Express."
Mr. Obama's remarks about the Republican tactics came at an abbreviated rally here, where he urged supporters to donate time and money to aid hurricane-relief efforts.
He also asked voters to keep the Gulf Coast "in our thoughts and prayers today," noting that 4 million people were without power and as many as 100,000 homes might be destroyed.
"In moments of tragedy, the American people come together," he said. "We may argue, we may differ, but we are all Americans."
It was the second time in as many weeks that he scrapped campaign plans as a major hurricane threatened the Gulf Coast.
Mr. Obama adjusted his schedule after speaking with federal officials and the mayor of Houston about preparedness in the advent of Hurricane Ike, which made landfall early Saturday.
On Labor Day as Hurricane Gustav descended on New Orleans, Mr. Obama attended three campaign events in swing states Michigan and Wisconsin. Instead of giving a political speech, he urged supporters at each stop to donate time and money and remember the "quiet storms" of bad schools and poverty every day.
*This article is based in part on wire service reports.
LOAD-DATE: September 14, 2008
GRAPHIC: THE SHOW GOES ON: Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama addresses a rally in Manchester, N.H., where he did not let up on attacks on his Republican rival. [Photo by Associated Press]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
September 13, 2008 Saturday
Metro Edition
DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGER PERRIELLO LAUNCHES SERIES OF TV ADS
BYLINE: By Michael Sluss mike.sluss@roanoke.com (804) 697-1585
SECTION: VIRGINIA; Pg. B1
Democrat Tom Perriello hopes to boost his name recognition with the first television ads promoting his bid for Virginia's 5th Congressional District seat.
He might also teach people to pronounce his name.
Perriello, who is challenging incumbent Republican Virgil Goode of Rocky Mount, has hit the airwaves with a pair of ads that have fun with the difficulty many people have pronouncing his name. The 30-second spots feature supporters throughout the district touting aspects of Perriello's campaign, but mangling the candidate's name.
Perriello, from Albemarle County, appears at the end of each ad along with an on-screen graphic displaying the phonetic spelling of his name (perry-L-O).
"I approved this message because how you pronounce my name isn't what's important; knowing what it stands for is," Perriello says in the ads, which are airing in the Charlottesville and Roanoke/Lynchburg markets.
Perriello is mounting a well-funded challenge to Goode, a six-term incumbent with high name recognition throughout the district. But many voters have a tough time with the Democrat's name, said Jessica Barba, Perriello's communications director.
"We all joke about it," she said.
The initial ads are intended to introduce Perriello to voters as the campaign season shifts into high gear, but Perriello also plans to air more issue-oriented ads as the election approaches, Barba said.
Goode campaign manager Tucker Watkins said the incumbent won't begin buying television time "until we need to."
"A majority of the voters know the good job Congressman Goode's been doing in his time in Congress and will continue to do," Watkins said.
Joe McCain takes stump in Va. for his brother John
Surrogates for Republican presidential candidate John McCain -- including the candidate's brother -- will campaign in Salem and Blacksburg today.
Joe McCain will join prominent state and local Republicans to rally support for the GOP presidential ticket, beginning with an 8 a.m. Salem Republican Committee breakfast at the Salem Civic Center. Attorney General Bob McDonnell, U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, state House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, and state Sen. Ralph Smith, R-Botetourt County, are scheduled to join Joe McCain at the breakfast.
The same group will greet voters at the Olde Salem Days festival beginning at 10 a.m. McDonnell and Joe McCain later will participate in a voter outreach and registration drive outside Lane Stadium before the start of the Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech football game.
Virginia has emerged as a battleground in this election, even though Republican candidates have carried the state in the past 10 presidential elections.
Democrat Barack Obama made appearances in Russell County and Norfolk this week, while John McCain campaigned with his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in Fairfax.
Republican activists have said enthusiasm for McCain's candidacy has spiked since Palin joined the ticket. But Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Friday that Virginia's 13 electoral votes remain instrumental to the Democrat's strategy for winning the election.
Plouffe predicted Obama would benefit from aggressive grass-roots and voter registration efforts in Virginia and said he expects a close contest in the state.
"We think we have great ability to get new voters interested and registered and increase turnout," Plouffe said in a conference call with reporters from Virginia and North Carolina.
LOAD-DATE: September 16, 2008
GRAPHIC: Photo 1 Tom Perriello 2 Virgil Goode Map 5th House District.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 13, 2008 Saturday
Democratic challenger Perriello launches series of TV ads: Goode's campaign said it would start buying television ads only if the need arises.
BYLINE: Michael Sluss, The Roanoke Times, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Sep. 13--Democrat Tom Perriello hopes to boost his name recognition with the first television ads promoting his bid for Virginia's 5th Congressional District seat.
He might also teach people to pronounce his name.
Perriello, who is challenging incumbent Republican Virgil Goode of Rocky Mount, has hit the airwaves with a pair of ads that have fun with the difficulty many people have pronouncing his name. The 30-second spots feature supporters throughout the district touting aspects of Perriello's campaign, but mangling the candidate's name.
Perriello, from Albemarle County, appears at the end of each ad along with an on-screen graphic displaying the phonetic spelling of his name (perry-L-O).
"I approved this message because how you pronounce my name isn't what's important; knowing what it stands for is," Perriello says in the ads, which are airing in the Charlottesville and Roanoke/Lynchburg markets.
Perriello is mounting a well-funded challenge to Goode, a six-term incumbent with high name recognition throughout the district. But many voters have a tough time with the Democrat's name, said Jessica Barba, Perriello's communications director.
"We all joke about it," she said.
The initial ads are intended to introduce Perriello to voters as the campaign season shifts into high gear, but Perriello also plans to air more issue-oriented ads as the election approaches, Barba said.
Goode campaign manager Tucker Watkins said the incumbent won't begin buying television time "until we need to."
"A majority of the voters know the good job Congressman Goode's been doing in his time in Congress and will continue to do," Watkins said.
Joe McCain takes stump in Va. for his brother John
Surrogates for Republican presidential candidate John McCain -- including the candidate's brother -- will campaign in Salem and Blacksburg today.
Joe McCain will join prominent state and local Republicans to rally support for the GOP presidential ticket, beginning with an 8 a.m. Salem Republican Committee breakfast at the Salem Civic Center. Attorney General Bob McDonnell, U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, state House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, and state Sen. Ralph Smith, R-Botetourt County, are scheduled to join Joe McCain at the breakfast.
The same group will greet voters at the Olde Salem Days festival beginning at 10 a.m. McDonnell and Joe McCain later will participate in a voter outreach and registration drive outside Lane Stadium before the start of the Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech football game.
Virginia has emerged as a battleground in this election, even though Republican candidates have carried the state in the past 10 presidential elections.
Democrat Barack Obama made appearances in Russell County and Norfolk this week, while John McCain campaigned with his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in Fairfax.
Republican activists have said enthusiasm for McCain's candidacy has spiked since Palin joined the ticket. But Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Friday that Virginia's 13 electoral votes remain instrumental to the Democrat's strategy for winning the election.
Plouffe predicted Obama would benefit from aggressive grass-roots and voter registration efforts in Virginia and said he expects a close contest in the state.
"We think we have great ability to get new voters interested and registered and increase turnout," Plouffe said in a conference call with reporters from Virginia and North Carolina.
To see more of The Roanoke Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.roanoke.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, The Roanoke Times, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 13, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
McCain, Palin differ on accounts of earmarks
The Associated Press
NEW YORK
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Friday defended the nearly $200 million in federal pet projects she sought as Alaska governor this year even as her running mate, Sen. John McCain, told a television audience she had never requested it.
Palin, in the second part of an ABC News interview, was confronted about her claims that she was opposed to federal earmarks, even though her request for such spending projects for 2009 was the highest per-capita sum in the nation , and that she opposed the $398 million Bridge to Nowhere linking Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport.
Palin turned against the bridge project only after Congress had pulled money for it.
Palin told ABC's Charles Gibson that since she took office, the state had "drastically" reduced its efforts to secure earmarks and would continue to do so while she was governor.
On the Bridge to Nowhere, Palin said she had supported a link from the mainland to the airport but not necessarily the costly bridge project.
Palin's comments came after McCain appeared on ABC's "The View," where he claimed erroneously that his running mate hadn't sought money for federal pet projects.
"Not as governor she didn't," McCain said.
The GOP hopeful also stood by two campaign commercials - one which said Obama favored sex education for kindergarten students and another that suggested Obama had called Palin a pig.
Obama, as an Illinois state senator, voted for legislation that would teach age-appropriate sex education to kindergartners, including information on rejecting advances by sexual predators. And while Obama told a campaign rally this week that McCain's policies were like "putting lipstick on a pig," he never used the phrase in connection with Palin.
"They're not lies," McCain said, insisting that Obama "chooses his words very carefully" and should never have made the lipstick remark.
LOAD-DATE: September 13, 2008
GRAPHIC: the associated press Republican presidential candidate John McCain appeared on ABC's "The View" on Friday with Barbara Walters and his wife, Cindy .
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 13, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Obama vows to step up attacks using the issues
The Associated Press
DOVER, N.H.
Democrat Barack Obama pushed his campaign Friday to a new level of counter-punching "on the issues that matter."
The changes come as national polls find Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, pulling ahead of Obama and Sen. Joe Biden, prompting some Democrats to implore them to fight back harder and Obama's camp to pledge "speed and ferocity" in that effort.
"You know, I'm not going to be making up lies about John McCain," the Illinois senator told undecided voters in Dover. But he dipped into history, citing the oft-repeated phrase: "If you don't stop lying about me, I'm going to have to start telling the truth about you."
Obama has called Palin a "phenomenon" and acknowledged she's given her ticket a boost. But his aides say McCain is vulnerable to new criticisms, saying he has stretched the truth in recent comments and ads and that Palin was shaky on foreign policy in an ABC News interview.
"Today is the first day of the rest of the campaign," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in a statement Friday. "We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people."
The newest Obama TV ad shows McCain at a hearing in the early 1980s wearing giant glasses and an out-of-style suit. Other images include a disco ball, a clunky phone, an outdated computer and a Rubik's Cube. "Things have changed in the last 26 years," the announcer says, "but McCain hasn't."
The Obama ad closes with a photo of McCain standing with President Bush. "After one president who was out of touch," the announcer says, "we just can't afford more of the same."
more news
Anti-Obama group is dealt a legal blow. Hampton Roads, Page 3
LOAD-DATE: September 13, 2008
GRAPHIC: elise amendola | the associated press Barack Obama campaigns Friday in Dover, N.H. National polls show his opponent, John McCain, pulling ahead in the presidential race.
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The Washington Post
September 13, 2008 Saturday
Suburban Edition
McCain Wraps Distortions Around One Truth
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A08
THE AD
He was the world's biggest celebrity, but his star's fading. So they lashed out at Sarah Palin. Dismissed her as "good-looking." That backfired, so they said she was doing "what she was told." Then desperately called Sarah Palin a liar. How disrespectful. And how Governor Sarah Palin proves them wrong, every day.
ANALYSIS
This John McCain commercial, which contains two significant distortions, is part of a larger effort to rule criticism of his running mate out of bounds and to paint her as the victim of unfair attacks from both Democrats and the media.
The "they" is never specified here, but the notion that Barack Obama's campaign "dismissed" Sarah Palin based on her looks twists what was clearly a self-deprecating joke by his running mate, Joseph R. Biden Jr. The senator from Delaware laughed as he compared himself to the Alaska governor: "Well, there's obvious differences. She's good-looking."
The "doing what she was told" line is an exaggerated version of a comment by Obama strategist David Axelrod. "She tried to attack Obama by saying he had no significant legislative accomplishments -- maybe that's what she was told," he said. Axelrod did not say that Palin was entirely programmed by the McCain campaign.
The spot is accurate in saying the Obama campaign called Palin a liar. An Obama ad challenged her for taking credit for stopping Alaska's so-called Bridge to Nowhere, which she had originally supported, saying: "Politicians lying about their records?"
The indignation in the female narrator's voice suggests that the Obama camp is unfairly pillorying Palin, in no small measure because she is a woman. One irony is that, while earlier McCain ads depicted the senator from Illinois as "the world's biggest celebrity" -- trying to make a liability of the large and enthusiastic crowds Obama was drawing -- McCain now has a celebrity of his own on the ticket and is determined to protect her image.
Video of this ad can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
LOAD-DATE: September 13, 2008
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The Washington Post
September 13, 2008 Saturday
Regional Edition
A Privacy Shield Against the Campaigns
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A17
While John McCain and Barack Obama have plenty to fight about, there is at least one thing that they agree on: Voters who interact with their campaigns have no privacy rights.
What does this mean?
It's simple: Voters do not have the right to opt out of unwanted campaign communications, either online or off-line. Voters don't have the right to decide who will contact them or how they will be contacted by the presidential campaigns.
This invasion of the voters' privacy is bipartisan. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. Heck, even Libertarians do it.
This week, I received an e-mail from the Obama campaign that had the subject line: "Your Neighbors." Intrigued, I opened the message and learned that the campaign was launching a sophisticated program called "Neighbor-to-Neighbor" that makes "it easier than ever to connect with potential supporters in your community by phone or door-to-door." It continues: "Neighbor-to-Neighbor gives you the option to make phone calls or knock on doors -- the choice is yours."
The choice may be yours, but what about your neighbors, who may not want you to bother them at their homes?
This new program is both tech-cool and privacy-rights-scary. When I clicked through to myBarackObama.com, I was able to create "walk lists" using a Google map showing me exactly where potential Obama supporters near me live. The Web site provided the names, addresses and phone numbers of these targeted neighbors and offered a prompt for printing out the list. The last step? Log back in and record the results of your "door-to-door" conversations with voters.
I don't know about you, but I do not want my neighbors knocking on my door asking me whom I'm going to vote for. I certainly do not want my name, address and phone number printed on a Google map for the world to see. And, without a doubt, I do not want anyone calling me at home during dinner.
This is an invasion of privacy, because these voters never explicitly gave their permission to have themselves targeted in a database that invites their neighbors to walk "door to door" to try to persuade them to vote for a particular candidate.
When I tried to opt out of this tool, I learned that while I could opt out of campaign e-mail spam, there was no way that I could quickly, securely and comprehensively opt out of voter communications that I do not want to receive.
John McCain's Web site is much the same: It provides no mechanism for voters to opt out of unwanted communications other than e-mail.
What can be done?
As a spokesperson for millions of voters inundated by political campaigns, I have testified this year before the Senate Rules Committee in support of the Robocall Privacy Act. Our members report receiving as many as 15 robocalls a day during election season. Mothers have their babies awakened from naps. Night-shift workers who sleep during the day can't get the rest they need. Seniors and others fear that a health emergency could occur while their phone is tied up.
While commercial organizations are required by law to respect the privacy rights of consumers, politicians at the federal level and in all but a few states have exempted themselves from these laws. More than 160 million phone numbers have been placed on the National Do Not Call Registry, which requires commercial organizations to stop calling consumers within 30 days of those consumers listing their numbers. Political campaigns will call many of those 160 million numbers with impunity this fall. Why should commercial companies be required by law to stop invading the privacy of potential customers while politicians are allowed to do whatever they wish to reach potential voters?
To answer this question, candidates usually cite the First Amendment -- the right to speak freely as part of the our nation's vital democratic process. That might be a legitimate criticism of an outright ban but not of a system in which voters are given the choice to opt out of unwelcome communications.
Thus, the real reason for their personal exemptions is obvious: Politicians write the laws, and politicians like regulation only when it applies to someone else.
The time has come for a Voter Privacy Bill of Rights built on a single, straightforward principle: Voters should have the right to opt out of all direct political communications that they do not want to receive. Period.
The writer is chief executive and founder of Citizens for Civil Discourse, a nonprofit group that has launched the National Political Do Not Contact Registry at StopPoliticalCalls.org.
LOAD-DATE: September 13, 2008
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The Washington Post
September 13, 2008 Saturday
Suburban Edition
Obama Campaign Begins Counterattack
BYLINE: Jonathan Weisman; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.H., Sept. 12
Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign launched a promised counterpunch against Sen. John McCain on Friday, portraying him as an aging, out-of-touch politician who would cater to "fat-cat" lobbyists and continue President Bush's economic policies.
With two new television advertisements, a campaign memo to supporters and a two-day trip through New Hampshire, Obama sought to regain his footing amid faltering poll numbers, a continuing assault by his Republican presidential rival and rising worries among Democrats about his campaign.
"They've been talking about lipstick and they've been talking about pigs and they've been talking about Paris and Britney," Obama told a boisterous crowd of 1,500 packed into a gym at a technical college here. "They will spend any amount of money and use any tactic out there in order to avoid talking about how we're going to move America forward to the future."
Attempting to shift the focus away from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and to McCain, Obama quoted his opponent saying Thursday night that "it's easy for me to go to Washington and, frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have."
"So from where he and George Bush sit, maybe they just can't see," the Democrat told supporters and some self-identified undecided voters earlier in the day in Dover. "Maybe they are just that out of touch. But you know the truth, and so do I. . . . We just can't afford four more years of what John McCain and George Bush consider progress."
If Democrats were expecting a dramatic change in words, tone or temperament, they did not get it. While McCain attacked him as a pampered, fading celebrity, a sexist and a desperate bully, Obama stuck to familiar themes linking the senator from Arizona to Bush and Washington lobbyists.
Even after being prodded by the audience in Dover, Obama appeared reluctant to get too aggressive. Glenn Grasso, 39, a doctoral student, pleaded: "When and how are you going to start fighting back?"
Obama responded by calling McCain's ads "just fabricated" and "just made up," an answer that spurred some to shout out: "Lies."
"Lies, that's the word," Obama said.
Not everyone was reassured. "Truth be told, I'm extremely worried" about Obama's dip in the polls and McCain's attacks, said Jaimee Rudman, 30.
Obama's use of McCain's words from a forum Thursday on volunteerism invited a biting response. McCain had suggested that he was out of touch as a way to defend Palin's record as a small-town mayor. But Obama also came to her defense at the forum, saying mayors fill potholes, trim trees and make sure the garbage is collected, while senators "yak."
"It's a shame that Barack Obama is using a discussion of service on September 11th as the basis for a distorted political attack. Especially when you consider that during the same event, Barack Obama reduced his own service in the U.S. Senate to mindless yakking," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded in a statement.
The ads from the Obama campaign took different approaches: One attacked McCain directly, the other tried to reinforce Obama's message of change with the candidate talking to the camera.
The attack was direct, accusing McCain of being out of touch after 26 years in Washington. Using jaunty, humorous music, a picture of a younger McCain with shaggy hair and the hint of sideburns, and images of massive, antiquated cellphones and a Rubik's Cube, the ad is the clearest evocation yet of McCain's age. The Republican turned 72 late last month.
"He admits he still doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send e-mail. Still doesn't understand the economy, and favors $200 billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class. . . . After one president who was out of touch," it concludes, "we just can't afford more of the same." The Obama campaign said the ad would be aired nationally on cable and on other outlets in swing states.
In a memo to supporters, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said: "In recent weeks, John McCain has shown that he is willing to go into the gutter to win this election. His campaign has become nothing but a series of smears, lies and cynical attempts to distract from the issues that matter to the American people."
Plouffe assured supporters that "we will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people."
Obama got something of an assist from the hosts of "The View," who challenged McCain on the integrity and honesty of his campaign. Joy Behar questioned two ads he is running against the Democrat -- one accusing him of supporting "comprehensive" sex education for kindergartners, the other saying he called Palin a pig when he used the saying "lipstick on a pig" in reference to McCain's claims to be an agent of change.
"We know that those two ads are untrue," Behar said. "They are lies."
When McCain defended them, Barbara Walters noted that McCain had made the same lipstick on a pig comment about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's health-care proposal.
"About health care," McCain said. Obama "chooses his words very carefully. He shouldn't have said it."
McCain has portrayed Palin as a reformer unwilling to accept pork from Washington, but Walters and Behar pressed. "She also took some earmarks," Walters said.
"No, not as governor she didn't," McCain responded, inaccurately.
The Obama campaign quickly produced newspaper articles about Palin seeking various earmarks as governor. In February, her office sent Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) a 70-page memo outlining almost $200 million worth of funding requests for her state.
The McCain campaign also kept up its attacks on Friday, releasing an ad titled "Disrespectful" [See Ad Watch, A8] that kept up its celebrity attack on Obama even as it continued to play the victim card with Palin. The spot says "they" dismissed her as "good looking," said she was just doing "what she was told" and called her a liar.
"He was the world's biggest celebrity, but his star is fading," the ad intones.
The independent FactCheck.org weighed in quickly, saying the ad -- already airing in Denver -- continues a pattern of distortion, taking quotes out of context and twisting meaning. "The new McCain-Palin ad . . . goes down new paths of deception," the Web site concluded.
On the stump, Obama focused on his tax plan, which offers sizable breaks to middle-income families, while raising taxes on families earning more than $250,000. He said McCain has been "simply dishonest" about that plan, asserting repeatedly that an Obama administration would raise everyone's taxes.
"I will make a firm pledge: I pledge under my plan, no one making less than $250,000 a year will see any type of tax increase, not income tax, not capital gains taxes, not any kind of taxes," Obama said.
And he slammed McCain's proposal to tax the value of employer-based health-care plans as income and use that to help finance tax credits to buy health insurance. The senator from Illinois called that "a $3.6 trillion tax increase" on working families.
Convinced that McCain's message on taxes is doing serious harm to Obama, Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D) sent a memo on Friday to every elected Democrat in his state to get the word out that Obama's plan would cut taxes for the middle class far more than McCain's would.
In an interview, Rendell said the Obama campaign is beginning to push back successfully on McCain's character attacks, but the Republican's charge that Obama would raise middle-class taxes may be more damaging. The McCain ads are "just despicable, but nowhere are they lying more clearly than on the tax issue," he said.
Staff writer Robert Barnes in Washington contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 13, 2008
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The Washington Post
September 13, 2008 Saturday
Suburban Edition
Biden's Son Quits Lobbying
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s son Hunter has stopped working as a federal lobbyist, employment that had made him a Republican target in the presidential contest.
"I no longer expect to act as a federal lobbyist," Hunter Biden said in a letter to the clerk of the House and the Senate Office of Public Records. The letter is dated Aug. 25 and was made public yesterday.
Presidential candidate Barack Obama, who chose Biden as his running mate last month, has been a vocal critic of rival John McCain's ties to lobbyists. In a new television ad, Obama repeats criticisms of McCain for having current and former lobbyists on his campaign staff.
Obama has refused to accept contributions from federal lobbyists, though some have advised his campaign.
Hunter Biden and his lobbying firm, Oldaker, Biden & Belair, have represented colleges and hospitals, mainly in an effort to secure money for them in appropriation bills. His letter ending his lobbying work was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
LOAD-DATE: September 13, 2008
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September 13, 2008 Saturday
Candidates trade barbs, add more heat than light
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
After a week of being pummeled as a sexist who is trying to trash the opposition, a newly aggressive Sen. Barack Obama on Friday went after Sen. John McCain as out of touch, accusing him of telling outright lies.
Mr. Obama assured worried Democrats he would not let the hits against him stand, quoting Abraham Lincoln: "If you don't stop lying about me I'm going to have to start telling the truth about you."
At a rally here with 1,500 people, Mr. Obama railed on Republicans as avoiding talking about real-life problems facing Americans.
"They've been talking about lipstick, they've been talking about pigs, they've been talking about Britney, they've been talking about Paris," he said, rattling off a series of McCain attack ad subjects.
"They will spend any amount of money and use any tactic out there in order to avoid talking about how we're going to move America into the future," he said, adding it has worked before but his supporters must fight the "standard operating procedure" and reject "the same old politics."
Earlier in Dover, N.H., he took a similar tone.
"This election is too important, it's too serious to be playing silly games," he said, a few hours after his campaign released an ad featuring a disco ball, a gigantic old-school phone, a Rubik's Cube and an unflattering photo of Mr. McCain.
The campy ad - which referenced the 72-year-old's confession he doesn't use the Internet and "can't send e-mail" - says: "Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn't."
Its release was accompanied by a memo from campaign manager David Plouffe that said Mr. McCain has shown "he is willing to go into the gutter to win this election."
"His campaign has become nothing but a series of smears, lies, and cynical attempts to distract from the issues that matter to the American people," Mr. Plouffe wrote.
Team McCain responded by calling Mr. Plouffe a hypocrite, and dubbed Mr. Obama "desperate" in the face of slumping poll numbers with less than eight weeks to go until the election.
"The irony of Obama's campaign manager putting out a memo decrying negative politics while releasing a personal attack ad captures the very hypocrisy which is the Obama campaign," the McCain campaign said.
Mr. McCain has seized a slim lead in several national polls and is inching uncomfortably close to Team Obama in key battleground states.
The Republicans, meanwhile, parsed words to say the Democratic ticket has "lashed out" and is being "disrespectful" toward McCain running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
"He was the world's biggest celebrity, but his star's fading," the ad states. "So they lashed out at Sarah Palin."
It claims she was "dismissed" as "good looking," even though Obama running mate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. meant the words as a compliment.
"That backfired, so they said she was doing, 'what she was told,' " the ad continues, citing a portion of a quote from Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod.
FactCheck.org said the ad "distorts quotes" from both Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, and said it suggests the out-of-context Axelrod quote came from the nominee. It concluded the ad was "particularly egregious" and "misleading."
The nonpartisan FactCheck.org also debunked a McCain ad from earlier in the week that claimed Mr. Obama was being sexist when comparing Mr. McCain's economic policy to putting "lipstick on a pig."
Obama supporters were glad for the shift to a more combative tone, with one man asking: "For those of us who have given you our support, and more importantly our money, when and how are you going to start fighting back against attack ads and the smear campaign."
"Our ads have been pretty tough," Mr. Obama responded. "I just have a different philosophy and that is that I'm going to respond with the truth."
Mr. Obama said he knows that some supporters are "getting nervous, because they've seen this movie before every four years."
He said the Republican ads are "just fabricated, they're just made up," and then agreed with a voter in the crowd: "Lies, that's the word I was looking for."
He promised his campaign would be "hitting back hard ... on
the issues that matter to families"
He blasted Mr. McCain, saying his tax plan "leaves 100 million people out" and "he doesn't have a plan to make college more affordable, I do."
"If they lie about us then we will correct the record. We're not just going to sit back and watch; we're going to make sure that anything that's out there, we are immediately responding to," he said.
In Dover a voter labeled McCain running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as "a feminine version of Dick Cheney and George Bush," but Mr. Obama chose to ignore the reference to the vice-presidential nominee.
Instead he lashed out at the press, saying "the media likes to report on the horse race" and quoting a Fox News executive as saying the media only cares about "polls, scandals, gaffes and attacks."
He noted the three upcoming debates - the first is Sept. 26 - and said they will provide "an unfiltered opportunity for the American people" to hear the candidates' respective plans.
Mr. Obama said Mr. McCain will represent President Bush's policies on the fall ballot and serve only the "special interests" and the "wealthiest of the wealthy," while he is the one who is actually "fighting for the middle class of this country."
It was less than two weeks ago the Obama team suspended any negative campaigning and scrapped a day's worth of events as Hurricane Gustav approached New Orleans, urging supporters to donate time and money to the Red Cross.
Despite Hurricane Ike threatening the Texas Gulf Coast, Mr. Obama did not pull any punches.
Mr. Obama on Friday used Mr. McCain's own words against him from a Sept. 11 Service Nation forum the previous evening.
Mr. Obama read the McCain quote to the Dover voters: "It's easy for me to go to Washington and, frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have."
The Arizona senator had been praising his running mate's service as a mayor, saying it put her closer to everyday people's concerns.
The McCain campaign responded that it was a "shame" that the service discussion commemorating the terrorist attacks was "the basis for a distorted political attack."
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds noted that "during the same event, Barack Obama reduced his own service in the U.S. Senate to mindless yakking."
Mr. Obama had made a similar remark when talking about mayors' work.
"The mayors have some of the toughest jobs in the country, because that's where the rubber hits the road," he said at the Service Nation forum in New York. "We yak in the Senate. They actually have to fill potholes and trim trees and make sure the garbage is taken away."
While Mr. Obama made several stops in this battleground state that helped Mr. McCain capture his nomination this past winter, Mr. McCain appeared on the all-female daytime show "The View," where one of the hosts called his Obama ads "lies."
"They're not lies," the Republican said. He said Mr. Obama should not have made the lipstick comment, adding his rival "chooses his words very carefully."
In response to the defense of the ads, the Obama camp said Mr. McCain was "running the sleaziest campaign since South Carolina in 2000," a race that smeared the McCain family and torpedoed his bid to defeat George W. Bush for the Republican presidential primary.
"It's clear that McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose an election," said Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan.
LOAD-DATE: September 14, 2008
GRAPHIC: PUSHING BACK: Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama campaigns Friday in New Hampshire, accusing Republican opponent Sen. John McCain of lying to voters and of being out of touch with middle-class America. [Photograph by Getty Images]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 12, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Misguided
The cable news channel {MSNBC} has dumped two of its high-profile yakkers -- Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews -- from the anchor seats of its political coverage. David Gregory, a legitimate news broadcaster, will lead the political coverage going forward.
Liberal bloggers are upset by the move, arguing that MSNBC caved in to pressure from John McCain's campaign and the right wing. Criticizing the media has been a cheap but effective tool by the McCain camp -- but on this score MSNBC has no one to blame but itself.
The short-lived Olbermann-Matthews anchor duo was a misguided ploy designed to boost ratings. The experiment backfired when the coverage veered off into on-air spats between the anchors that began to sound more like talk radio. The move left the cable network open to valid criticism of having a liberal bias.
-- Philadelphia Inquirer
Hostility
It's been seven years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and many young American Muslims are convinced that much of American society views them with growing hostility. They're right.
A 2007 Zogby poll discovered that 76 percent of young Arab-Americans report experiencing discrimination. A CNN poll from the same year found that 53 percent of Americans believe conflict between Islam and Christianity is "inevitable," up from 45 percent in 2003.
These hardening attitudes affect the job opportunities of American Muslims. ... And profiling continues to be a problem.
-- Moustafa Bayoumi, author of "How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America" (The Penguin Press).
Engage Cuba
{Cuba's} economy is in a shambles. Fidel Castro, the personification of its nationalism, is dying. The country is seemingly adrift. And now, bleeding from Hurricane Ike -- the second major hurricane to hit within a week.
It could offer a remarkable moment in the United States' relationship with Cuba. An opportunity for goodwill to start nudging aside decades of failed policies. Policies such as the embargo have blocked not just dollars, but American ideas and ideals, from the island for more than four and a half decades.
-- Ralph De La Cruz, South Florida Sun Sentinel
What's the pig deal?
On a day when the Congressional Budget Office warned of looming deficits and a grim economic outlook, when the stock market faltered even in the wake of the government's rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when President Bush discussed the road ahead in Iraq and Afghanistan, on what did the campaign of Sen. John McCain spend its energy? A conference call to denounce Sen. Barack Obama for using the phrase "lipstick on a pig" and a new television ad accusing the Democrat of wanting to teach kindergartners about sex before they learn to read.
Mr. Obama's supposedly offending remark was not only not offensive -- it also was not directed at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. "The other side, suddenly, they're saying 'we're for change too,'\" Mr. Obama said. "You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig."
With a woman on the ticket, apparently all references to cosmetics -- or pork of the non-bridge variety, for that matter -- are forbidden.
-- The Washington Post
LOAD-DATE: September 12, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 12, 2008 Friday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
A 'day that began like any other and ended as none ever has.'
Michael Bloomberg,
mayor of New York City From wire reports
WASHINGTON
The nearly 3,000 people who died when hijackers commandeered four passenger jets on Sept. 11, 2001, were remembered Thursday, as President Bush dedicated the first national memorial to the victims and the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates came together in a moment of silence.
In a ceremony at the Pentagon, where 184 people were killed, Bush recalled how the "doomed airliner plunged from the sky, split the rock and steel of this building, and changed our world forever."
His voice cracking, he noted , "There has not been another attack on our soil in 2,557 days" and said he hoped that future generations of Americans with "no living memory" of the attacks would conclude that, "We did not tire, we did not falter and we did not fail."
"A memorial can never replace what those of you mourning a loved one lost," he told the audience, estimated at 15,000 people and includ ing many family members and friends of those who died at the Pentagon that day. "We pray that you will find some comfort amid the peace of these grounds. We pray that you will find strength in knowing that our nation will always grieve for you."
In New York City, where 2,751 people were killed when American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into the World Trade Center towers, causing the buildings to collapse, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama walked with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and McCain's wife, Cindy, to a temporary memorial site. They laid roses at a reflecting pool at the base of ground zero and paused, bowing their heads in silence. They also greeted a group of survivors, first responders and family members of the people who died.
"Today marks the seventh anniversary of the day our world was broken," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the start of the ceremony, calling Sept. 11, 2001, a "day that began like any other and ended as none ever has."
The crowd fell silent in a park just east of the Trade Center site at 8:46, 9:03, 9:59 and 10:29 a.m. - the times when two hijacked jets slammed into the buildings and the twin towers fell.
Alex, Aidan and Anna Salamone - now 13, 11 and 10 years old - wore old soccer jerseys belonging to their father, broker John Patrick Salamone, who was 37 when he was killed. They recalled playing in the yard with a toy wagon.
"He was strong. He was funny. He always made me laugh," Alex Salamone said. "I wish I could remember more, but we were so young when he died."
"We love you, daddy," said Anna.
Still others chose to forgo the public observances altogether and mark the day in quieter, more private ways. Kai Thompson Hernandez toasted her late husband, Glenn Thompson, at a beach, with his favorite brand of beer.
"I try and celebrate his life rather than mark the place of his death," she said.
In honor of the anniversary, both presidential campaigns suspended television advertising for the day. The two men appeared Thursday night at Columbia University at a forum on national service.
In a statement posted on his campaign Web site, Obama recalled that on that tragic day, "Americans across our great country came together to stand with the families of the victims, to donate blood, to give to charity, and to say a prayer for our country. Let us renew that spirit of service and that sense of common purpose."
Before traveling to New York, McCain spoke at a remembrance ceremony at a field near Shanksville, Pa. - the spot where United Airlines Flight 93, with 40 passengers and crew aboard, crashed after what investigators have concluded was an uprising against the four hijackers. In his remarks, the Arizona senator noted that the plane's intended target was believed to be the U.S. Capitol.
"Hundreds, if not thousands, of people would have been at work in that building when that fateful moment occurred, and been destroyed along with a beautiful symbol of our freedom," he said. "They and, very possibly, I owe our lives to the passengers who summoned the courage and love necessary to deny our depraved and hateful enemies their terrible triumph."
At the Pentagon ceremony, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who helped people flee the building after the crash, fought off tears as he talked about how "a great building became a battlefield."
He mourned the Pentagon employees who "one morning kissed their loved ones goodbye, went off to work and never came home," and the passengers on American Airlines Flight 77, which had left Washington Dulles International Airport barely an hour before the crash, "who in the last moments made phone calls to loved ones and prayed to the Almighty before their journey ended not far from where it began."
"It was here that their fates were truly merged forever," he said. "They fell side by side as Americans. And make no mistake, it was because they were Americans that they were killed here in this place."
Family members and friends of those who died at the Pentagon took solace in the ceremony and in each other's company.
"I just couldn't come back here right after it happened," said Pam Thornton, whose son died at the Pentagon.
"Now, being here around everybody else who has had people they love die makes it easier."
Doris Brunelle, who lost her brother, said she hoped that the memorial reminds others of the sacrifice people made on that day.
"Freedom is not free," she said while waiting to see her brother's bench.
"We should thank God when we wake up in the morning that we are still free and alive."
This story was compiled from reports by the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press.
LOAD-DATE: September 12, 2008
GRAPHIC: daniel acker | The associated press An American flag flies from a crane over the World Trade Center site during the seventh annual commemoration ceremony of the Sept. 11 attacks on Thursday in New York. pablo martinez monsivais | the associated press President Bush and first lady Laura Bush, left, with Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, and White House staff, observe a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday in honor of the Sept. 11 victims. peter foley | the associated press Sen. John McCain, left, and Sen. Barack Obama toss flowers into the reflecting pool at ground zero on a day when they set campaigning aside. gene j. puskar | the associated press Visitors to the temporary Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pa., join in a sunrise memorial Thursday. It was there that United Airlines Flight 93 crashed with 40 passengers and crew.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 12, 2008 Friday
Suburban Edition
Candidates Promise National-Service Initiatives
BYLINE: Michael D. Shear and Jonathan Weisman; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
DATELINE: NEW YORK, Sept. 11
Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain pledged to inspire a new commitment to public service Thursday, as they set aside the rancor of an intense presidential campaign during a two-hour forum on the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The best way to commemorate, and the best way to show our appreciation for and our love and sympathy for the families of those who have sacrificed, is to serve our country," McCain said.
The question, Obama said later, is how to recreate the spirit of service "not just during times of tragedy, not just during 9/11, but how do we honor those who died, those who sacrificed . . . how do we honor them every day?"
In back-to-back conversations largely devoid of partisan recrimination, McCain (R-Ariz.) and Obama (D-Ill.) each urged Americans to honor the victims of the country's worst terrorist attack by dedicating their time to service through teaching, the military, the Peace Corps and faith-based volunteering.
But the reality of Campaign 2008 -- a contest that has turned particularly ugly in recent days -- was never far from the surface as both men were challenged by the questioners to explain the often angry tone of their competition for the White House.
McCain acknowledged the "rough" nature of the campaign and praised Obama's service as a community organizer -- something his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, had mocked during her speech to the Republican national convention.
McCain defended Palin, saying she had been responding to a barrage of criticism of her own experience as a small-town mayor. But he appeared to chide his supporters who derided Obama's efforts as a young man.
"Of course I respect community organizers. Of course I respect people who serve their community," he said.
Obama did not disparage Palin's service as mayor of Wasilla, praising small-town mayors and noting the presence of many at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last month. "We yak in the Senate. They actually have to fill potholes, trim trees and make sure the garbage is collected," Obama said.
He expressed only "surprise" at Palin's decision to belittle his work as a community organizer, displaying no anger and keeping the sometimes subdued tone that some Democrats have argued he must shed if he is to rally Democrats and appeal to voters waiting for him to display his passion.
Obama called McCain's service in the military "legendary," adding that "one of the wonderful things about this campaign is his ability to share that story."
Some of the more lighthearted moments of the evening came when each man was asked if he would create a Cabinet-level position on public service -- and then appoint the other to it.
McCain chuckled and said yes before adding that he believes there are too many Cabinet secretaries already.
Obama laughed and said, "If this is the deal he wants to make right now, I'm committed to appointing him." Asked whether he would serve in McCain's Cabinet, Obama said, "We've got a little work to do before we get to that."
McCain also drew laughter when he was asked about encouraging older Americans to participate in public service. They are "living longer and they're more vigorous," he said. "I'm here to tell you that's a fact."
The 72-year-old candidate then cocked his head and pretended to fall asleep for a moment, letting out a "Zzz."
While the tone of the event was civil, McCain and Obama did outline differing roles for the federal government in fostering volunteerism.
McCain stressed that the government should not compel service, argued the private sector should take a larger role in disaster relief and said he hoped private companies would allow their employees to volunteer in the community. He declined to put a price tag on his service initiative.
"When you compel someone to do something, you basically are in contradiction to the basic principle of people wanting to serve," he said, adding later that he would sign a bipartisan Senate bill that would expand government support of service programs.
Obama, who has proposed a $3.5 billion service program, emphasized his belief that government and the private sector could work together to augment each other's efforts.
The solution, he said, is to offer people more ways to volunteer, and he said the government needs to do more to encourage that. "The government is going to have a role," he said.
"My sense is the country yearns for that," Obama said. "It's hungry for it. What has been missing is a president in the White House that taps into that yearning in a serious way. . . . The choices we offer young people today are too constraining."
Each made a bit of news in the forums.
McCain pledged to sign a bipartisan bill on national service that is being introduced Friday, prompting applause from the audience in Columbia University's Roone Arledge Auditorium at Lerner Hall.
Obama said he thought it was wrong for Columbia -- his alma mater -- and other colleges to turn away the Reserve Officers' Training Corps because of differences some students have on military policy.
"I think we've made a mistake on that," he said. "We should have an honest debate while still having opportunities to serve."
Last month, Jay Winuk, a co-founder of MyGoodDeed.org and the brother of a Sept. 11 victim, wrote to both campaigns, asking them to set aside campaigning to participate in the event.
Winuk's younger brother Glenn was a partner at the law firm Holland and Knight and a volunteer firefighter in Jericho, Long Island, who died after rushing into the World Trade Center to provide assistance on 9/11.
Earlier in the day, the presidential rivals made a joint appearance at Ground Zero to honor the victims of the terrorist attacks. They chatted as they walked side by side down a long ramp to the site, where they talked with family members of 9/11 victims as well as first responders before laying roses in the reflecting pool commemorating the attacks.
Both men had promised to take a break from politics for a day, suspending all television commercials and other campaign activities. A day after a barrage of attack e-mails from both sides poured into reporters' inboxes, there were none from McCain, Obama or their respective political parties.
"Today, we honor the memory of the lives that were lost on September 11, 2001, and grieve with the families and friends who lost someone they loved in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. We will never forget those who died," a statement from Obama read.
In the morning, McCain paid a somber visit to the field where United Flight 93 crashed, marking the moment that passengers overwhelmed terrorists onboard the ill-fated airliner.
The evening forum, in which both men took questions for roughly an hour from Time magazine's managing editor, Richard Stengel, and PBS "NewsHour" senior correspondent and political editor Judy Woodruff, was organized by ServiceNation, a group dedicated to increasing service by Americans, and hosted by Time and CNN. McCain went first, and Obama was allowed to listen, organizers said, because they would not be asked identical questions.
While Obama and McCain put aside their attacks, the Illinois Democrat continued his rapprochement with former president Bill Clinton with a long, private get-together in Harlem. Over sandwiches and pizza, the two chitchatted about Clinton's commute from suburban Chappaqua, the work of the former president's international charitable organization and the presidential campaign.
"I've agreed to do a substantial number of things" for Obama, Clinton told a small pool of reporters. "Whatever I'm asked to do."
"We're putting him to work," Obama chimed in.
LOAD-DATE: September 12, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post; Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, who have fought fiercely of late, looked more like allies at the ServiceNation forum.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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September 12, 2008 Friday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; INSIDE POLITICS; A06
OBAMA AND PALIN
"Of all the advantages Gov. Sarah Palin has brought to the GOP ticket, the most important may be that she has gotten into Barack Obama's head. How else to explain Sen. Obama's decision to go one-on-one against 'Sarah Barracuda,' captain of the Wasilla High state basketball champs?" Karl Rove writes in the Wall Street Journal.
"It's a matchup he'll lose. If Mr. Obama wants to win, he needs to remember he's running against John McCain for president, not Mrs. Palin for vice president," Mr. Rove said.
"Michael Dukakis spent the last months of the 1988 campaign calling his opponent's running mate, Dan Quayle, a risky choice and even ran a TV ad blasting Mr. Quayle. The Bush/Quayle ticket carried 40 states.
"Adlai Stevenson spent the fall of 1952 bashing Dwight Eisenhower's running mate, Richard Nixon, calling him 'the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, and then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.' The Republican ticket carried 39 of 48 states.
"If Mr. Obama keeps attacking Mrs. Palin, he could suffer the fate of his Democratic predecessors. These assaults highlight his own tissue-thin resume, waste precious time better spent reassuring voters he is up for the job, and diminish him - not her."
IT WILL NOT LAST
"The Sarah Palin 'boom' that has so traumatized Democrats and intimidated the press will have little if any impact on the presidential election," Bob Beckel writes at www.realclearpolitics.com.
"People don't vote for vice presidents, they vote for presidents. This race is about John McCain and Barack Obama not Annie Oakley from Wasilla, Alaska. It is also about turnout numbers and the electoral demographics in 2008 which overwhelm any impact Sarah Palin might have on the election outcome," said Mr. Beckel, a political commentator and former Democratic operative.
"First the Palin 'boom.' It is the product of surprise (a short lived but powerful force in politics), an emotional outlet for the GOP Right, and post-convention polls. In the intense coverage of politics by the ever expanding number of outlets for political information, what is new and surprising quickly becomes over exposed resulting in a short shelf life. The freshness goes away quickly. So it will be shortly for Ms. Palin. She has had the best week in this campaign she will have and the only direction now is down.
"The large turnouts at McCain/Palin events this week are a result of an energized Right (which will vote Republican anyway) and say as much about the lack of enthusiasm on the Right for McCain before he picked Palin as it does about any shift in the electorate. As for post-convention polls, they are the least predictive of the eventual outcome as any polls in a presidential election. Of course there was a 'bounce' after three days of what amounted to an infomercial for McCain and a negative ad campaign against Obama. It will not last."
WEYRICH HONORED
More than $330,000 was raised for the conservative Free Congress Foundation at a banquet Wednesday night honoring Paul M. Weyrich, a founder of the modern conservative movement, reports Ralph Z. Hallow of The Washington Times.
Many among the 431 guests, including Senate and House members, at the $250-a-plate dinner were seen dabbing their eyes as 30 leading names on the political right delivered in-person or video encomiums to Mr. Weyrich, 66, the Free Congress founder and president.
Mr. Weyrich, looking frail in his wheelchair (both legs were amputated in recent years after complications resulting from a serious fall), addressed admirers at the dinner organized by Let Freedom Ring President Colin Hanna and Rapid Response Media President Demos Chrissos.
Mr. Weyrich said he was "amazed" at the outpouring of appreciation and insisted that most of the ideas credited to him for turning conservative principles into political reality over the years originated with someone else.
But he was contradicted by speakers such as radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, commentator Pat Buchanan, Independent Women's Forum President Heather Higgins, conservative movement godfather Richard Viguerie, Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, and Bradley Foundation President Mike Grebe, who recounted anecdotes about Mr. Weyrich putting into action policies that originated in the "vast right-wing conspiracy."
LEAVE HER ALONE
"As someone who would prefer seeing the Democrats back in the White House," Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown writes, "I had one recurring thought as Palin was giving her speech last week at the Republican National Convention:
"Uh-oh.
"You could see immediately that she was going to throw everything up for grabs and put the Democrats off balance," Mr. Brown said.
"At some point, the Obama campaign ought to take my advice concerning Palin and, repeat after me, leave her alone. At the very least, leave her alone until the dust clears and they figure out a better way to go after her.
"With his ['lipstick on a pig'] stumble, Obama managed to drown out a breaking story the same day that raised legitimate questions about Palin's use of her Alaskan travel expense account to pad her paycheck, paying herself a per diem to stay at home. It also came just as we're starting to get clarity on Palin's bogus characterization of her handling of the Bridge to Nowhere. It turns out she was all for it, until she wasn't, and kept the federal money.
"Either of those are fair game. He might even have been able to joke about the GOP putting lipstick on a pit bull, just not a pig.
"Obama tried to fight back Wednesday against what he called the 'phony outrage' from the McCain campaign over his 'lipstick on a pig' comment.
"Of course, it was phony outrage.
"Republicans weren't outraged about what he said. They were gleeful. They were thinking, 'How dumb is this guy? He keeps falling into our trap.' "
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com
LOAD-DATE: September 12, 2008
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 11, 2008 Thursday
Final Edition
Judge to rule on ads' fate;
Local advocacy unit wants to pursue an anti-Obama agenda
BYLINE: TYLER WHITLEY; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-7
The Real Truth About Obama Inc., an advocacy group, will find out today whether it can pursue its anti-Obama agenda.
U.S. District Court Judge James Spencer said he probably would rule late today on whether to issue a preliminary injunction to block the Federal Election Commission from enforcing regulations against the group.
The Richmond-based organization wants to broadcast a radio ad and an online audio ad condemning Obama's views on abortion.
In the ads an Obama-like voice supports change, then says: "One thing I would not change about America is abortion on demand, for any reason, at any time during pregnancy, as many times as a woman wants one."
One of the ads was to run on the radio program of conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh.
The group said it also plans to create a Web site with digital postcards setting out Obama's policy positions on abortion.
Coincidentally, some of the restrictions the group wants to lift are contained in the McCain-Feingold bill, named after Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee who might benefit from the anti-Obama advocacy.
State Corporation Commission records show that the Real Truth group is headed by James K. Disney, a Richmond resident. It was formed July 24.
James Bopp Jr., a First Amendment lawyer representing the Real Truth group, said it is so late in the campaign season that the group would be "irreparably harmed" if not allowed to collect money and publish ads.
But David Kolker, a lawyer representing the FEC, said no harm can be proved. He said the issues advocacy that the group proposes approaches advocating the defeat of a specific candidate, Obama, which McCain-Feingold prohibits for third-party groups.
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: September 13, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 11, 2008 Thursday
Judge to rule on ads' fate: Local advocacy unit wants to pursue an anti-Obama agenda
BYLINE: Tyler Whitley, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Sep. 11--The Real Truth About Obama Inc., an advocacy group, will find out today whether it can pursue its anti-Obama agenda.
U.S. District Court Judge James Spencer said he probably would rule late today on whether to issue a preliminary injunction to block the Federal Election Commission from enforcing regulations against the group.
The Richmond-based organization wants to broadcast a radio ad and an online audio ad condemning Obama's views on abortion.
In the ads an Obama-like voice supports change, then says: "One thing I would not change about America is abortion on demand, for any reason, at any time during pregnancy, as many times as a woman wants one."
One of the ads was to run on the radio program of conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh.
The group said it also plans to create a Web site with digital postcards setting out Obama's policy positions on abortion.
Coincidentally, some of the restrictions the group wants to lift are contained in the McCain-Feingold bill, named after Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee who might benefit from the anti-Obama advocacy.
State Corporation Commission records show that the Real Truth group is headed by James K. Disney, a Richmond resident. It was formed July 24.
James Bopp Jr., a First Amendment lawyer representing the Real Truth group, said it is so late in the campaign season that the group would be "irreparably harmed" if not allowed to collect money and publish ads.
But David Kolker, a lawyer representing the FEC, said no harm can be proved. He said the issues advocacy that the group proposes approaches advocating the defeat of a specific candidate, Obama, which McCain-Feingold prohibits for third-party groups.
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: September 11, 2008
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The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
September 11, 2008 Thursday
Metro Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B8
During her barn-burner of an acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said, "We suspended the state fuel tax and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that Bridge to Nowhere. If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves."
The "thanks, but no thanks" line got a lot of applause, and Sen. John McCain and Palin have done much to paint themselves as reformers opposed to earmarks and other wasteful spending.
Yet the facts simply don't back that up in Palin's case. Palin supported the Bridge to Nowhere when she ran for governor in 2006 and only killed it after Congress made it clear the state would have to pay much of the cost itself.
Not only that, but Alaska didn't give the money back. Congress removed the earmark, but let Alaska keep the cash.
Even after the bridge project died, Palin authorized the state to go ahead and spend about $25 million in federal funds on a road to where the bridge would have been -- because otherwise Alaska would have had to give that money back.
In addition, as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla, she hired a lobbyist who secured more than $27 million in federal earmarks. Some of those earmarks were on "pork lists" put together by McCain to criticize wasteful spending.
As governor of Alaska, Palin has not been shy about asking for pork, either.
This year, even as the federal government faced record budget deficits while Alaska's coffers overflowed with oil revenue, she asked for nearly $200 million in earmarks.
Does this sound like a maverick taking on wasteful spending?
Palin can be forgiven for initially attempting to put the best possible spin on the Bridge to Nowhere. But what should not be forgotten is that McCain continued to put out ads claiming she said "no thanks" to the bridge even after the truth had come out. Palin continued to make the claim at campaign appearances, too.
That's simply shameless, and an insult to the intelligence of America's voters.
But McCain seems to have run out of shame. How else to explain allowing his campaign to cast Obama's "lipstick on a pig" remark as some sort of sexist attack -- when McCain himself used the same phrase to belittle Hillary Clinton's health care plan.
How else to explain the absolutely shameless McCain ad that makes the false claim that Obama supported comprehensive sex ed for kindergartners.
McCain likes to consider himself a straight-talker. If he wants to rebuild that reputation, he needs to quit running false ads and standing idly by while his running mate spouts outright lies.
Facts matter, and the facts simply do not support the notion that Palin has been any kind of fighter against earmarks. On the contrary, she has been slopping at the trough.
And, no, the use of that very common metaphor is by no means meant to liken Palin to a pig -- except in her unending appetite for Washington pork.
LOAD-DATE: September 12, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
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The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 11, 2008 Thursday
EDITORIAL: A bridge too far
BYLINE: The Roanoke Times, Va.
Sep. 11--During her barn-burner of an acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said, "We suspended the state fuel tax and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that Bridge to Nowhere. If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves."
The "thanks, but no thanks" line got a lot of applause, and Sen. John McCain and Palin have done much to paint themselves as reformers opposed to earmarks and other wasteful spending.
Yet the facts simply don't back that up in Palin's case. Palin supported the Bridge to Nowhere when she ran for governor in 2006 and only killed it after Congress made it clear the state would have to pay much of the cost itself.
Not only that, but Alaska didn't give the money back. Congress removed the earmark, but let Alaska keep the cash.
Even after the bridge project died, Palin authorized the state to go ahead and spend about $25 million in federal funds on a road to where the bridge would have been -- because otherwise Alaska would have had to give that money back.
In addition, as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla, she hired a lobbyist who secured more than $27 million in federal earmarks. Some of those earmarks were on "pork lists" put together by McCain to criticize wasteful spending.
As governor of Alaska, Palin has not been shy about asking for pork, either.
This year, even as the federal government faced record budget deficits while Alaska's coffers overflowed with oil revenue, she asked for nearly $200 million in earmarks.
Does this sound like a maverick taking on wasteful spending?
Palin can be forgiven for initially attempting to put the best possible spin on the Bridge to Nowhere. But what should not be forgotten is that McCain continued to put out ads claiming she said "no thanks" to the bridge even after the truth had come out. Palin continued to make the claim at campaign appearances, too.
That's simply shameless, and an insult to the intelligence of America's voters.
But McCain seems to have run out of shame. How else to explain allowing his campaign to cast Obama's "lipstick on a pig" remark as some sort of sexist attack -- when McCain himself used the same phrase to belittle Hillary Clinton's health care plan.
How else to explain the absolutely shameless McCain ad that makes the false claim that Obama supported comprehensive sex ed for kindergartners.
McCain likes to consider himself a straight-talker. If he wants to rebuild that reputation, he needs to quit running false ads and standing idly by while his running mate spouts outright lies.
Facts matter, and the facts simply do not support the notion that Palin has been any kind of fighter against earmarks. On the contrary, she has been slopping at the trough.
And, no, the use of that very common metaphor is by no means meant to liken Palin to a pig -- except in her unending appetite for Washington pork.
To see more of The Roanoke Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.roanoke.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Roanoke Times, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 11, 2008 Thursday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
NONE OF us has ever lived through an election at a time when 80 percent of voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction. But now that we're in the thick of it, a few things are clear. From voters, the demand is: Surprise Me Most. For candidates, the lesson is: Weirdness Wins.
Last winter, Barack Obama succeeded by running a weird campaign. He wasn't just a normal politician aiming for office, he was going to cleanse the country of the baby-boom culture war mentality. In his soaring speeches, he denounced the mores of both the Clinton and Bush eras and made an argument for unity and hope over endless partisan warfare.
Over the course of the spring, however, Obama's campaign got less weird. The crucial pivot came when he failed to seize on McCain's offer to do a series of joint town-hall meetings across the country. Those meetings would have elevated the race and shown that Obama is willing to take risks to truly change the way things are done.
Instead, Obama's speeches became more conventional, more policy-specific and more orthodox. His Denver acceptance speech was different from his Iowa speeches. It was more traditionally anti-Republican and pro-Democratic. In the speech's crucial contrast Obama declared: "It's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America. You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country."
It is easy to see why Obama might tack this way. Democrats have a huge advantage in a straight-up issue contest. McCain is vulnerable on health care and the economy.
But by campaigning in this traditional way, Obama ceded the weirdness edge to McCain.
The old warrior jumped right in. Think about how weird last week was. The Republican convention was one long protest against the way the Republicans themselves have run Washington. McCain's convention speech barely mentioned his own party. His vice presidential nominee came out of the blue and seems totally unlike the regular crowd of former eighth-grade class presidents who normally dominate public life. McCain's campaign ideology, exemplified in a new ad released on Monday, is not familiar conservatism. It's maverickism -- against the entrenched powers and party orthodoxies.
And it all worked. McCain got a huge post-convention bounce in the polls.
Now the campaign has become a battle between two different definitions of change. The Obama camp has become the champion of policy change -- after eight years of failed Bush-McCain policies, it is time for different, Democratic ones. The McCain campaign is the champion of systemic change -- after two decades of bickering and self-dealing, it's time to shake up the whole system to get things done.
The Obama change is more responsible and specific, but it has all the weirdness of a Brookings Institution report. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) The McCain promise of change is comprehensive and vehement, though it's hard to know how it would actually work in office.
It will still be hard for McCain to win in this environment, but his emphasis on broad systemic change may appeal to swing voters. Independent voters do not believe the country's problems can be solved merely by replacing Republicans with Democrats. They cast a pox on both houses.
Furthermore, the maverick theme allows McCain to talk directly about character. Obama can hint at his values when he describes his tax cuts and health care plans, but he is indirect. Most voters, especially ones who decide late, vote on character over policies.
If I were advising the candidates, I'd tell them to double down on weirdness. Obama needs to occasionally criticize his own side. If he can't take on his own party hacks, he'll never reclaim the mantle of systemic change. Specifically, he needs to attack the snobs who are savaging Sarah Palin's faith and family. Many liberals claim to love working-class families, but the moment they glimpse a hunter with an uneven college record, they hop on chairs and call for disinfectant.
If I were McCain, I'd make the divided-government argument explicit. Republicans are intellectually unfit to govern right now, but balancing with Democrats, they might be able to do some good. I'd have McCain tell the country that he looks forward to working with congressional Democrats, that he is confident they can achieve great things together.
The candidates probably won't take this kind of advice. But remember: Weirdness wins. Surprise me most.
David Brooks is a columnist with The New York Times.
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 11, 2008 Thursday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
America's just fine
RE "NO SPITTING," punditry, Aug. 24, by Karen Heller:
Not all of us join in the popular disrespecting and loathing of our current president and vice president.
America is still great.
We have been safe at home since 9/11.
There is prosperity and security. Just visit a restaurant or shopping mall and watch families spending money happily.
Gas was about $2.50 when the Democrats took over Congress.
Perhaps we should be wary of the cry for change. Frankly, Sen. Obama's idea for change terrifies me.
America has been, and still is, just fine, thank you.
And thank you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney -- very much!
Jean Corletto
Norfolk
Just say no to hot dogs
As a dietitian with the nonprofit organization that produced the provocative "Protect Our Kids" anti-hot dog TV commercial, I think Americans deserve to know about the compelling scientific evidence linking processed meat consumption to increased risk of colorectal cancer A landmark report released late last year by the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund concluded that no amount of processed meat is considered safe to eat; ideally, it should be completely avoided. After reviewing 58 large scientific studies, researchers with the two cancer organizations concluded that processed meats increase one's risk of colorectal cancer by 21 percent for every 50 grams of processed meat consumed daily (a 50-gram serving is about the size of a typical hot dog).
As with all carcinogens, longer exposure likely means greater risk. That's why it's so important to get hot dogs and other processed meats out of the school lunch line and help kids develop healthy eating habits that can protect them from cancer later in life. Teaching kids about good nutrition sets the stage for healthy eating habits down the road and can help prevent heart disease, obesity and other diet-related diseases as they grow older.
Susan Levin, M.S., R.D.
Staff Dietitian
The Cancer Project
Washington, D.C.
Bill of Rights rebuttal
Re "Try Frederick at home," letter, Sept. 9:
The writer clearly has no grasp of legal concepts. He accuses the prosecutor of not having any regard for the Bill of Rights, one presumes, because Ryan Frederick is charged with using a firearm in the commission of killing a law enforcement officer. I guess the writer believes that you have a Second Amendment right to shoot your gun at the police as long as you do it from the comfort of your own home.
He also condemns Frederick's no-bond status as a violation under the Eighth Amendment, which it is not. Perhaps he thinks society is better protected when those charged with the most serious of crimes are allowed out on bond. Next, he stated, "A normal search using a regular warrant would have turned up the same evidence." But police obtained a search warrant, the only warrant available to the police for this type of action.
Finally, his reliance on the text of the Sixth Amendment is one-sided. Both sides are entitled to a fair trial. No one seems to have much difficulty with the issue when the defense wants to move a trial, but if prosecutors ask for the same opportunity, they are demonized.
We are all waiting for the details of this night to come out completely. They will at Frederick's trial. Until then, those who have marched in support of Frederick may want to wait and save themselves a lot of embarrassment.
Brent Burnette
Virginia Beach
Race shouldn't matter
One of your readers wrote that Barack Obama is not African American ("Historic hype," letter, Sept. 6). He also stated that Obama and his campaign are deceiving the American people in an effort to "garner the African American vote." We know that Obama is not African American by definition, but he is, and will always be, a black man!
I would like to think that voters aren't ignorant enough to pick a candidate based simply on his racial makeup. But then again, this country was built on racist principles and has a long way to go in destroying the evils of discrimination. We must work together to bring about change that benefits Americans of all racial backgrounds.
While I am proud that Obama is a black man who may become president (I am African American), I am voting for the candidate whom I feel is the best choice to take charge of our country. He could be white, black, yellow, red or green, so long as he keeps America's democracy, growth and development in his sights.
An old Chinese proverb says, "No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat." This should be the sentiment of American voters who truly care about this country's future.
Laurence Braddell
Hampton
Thumbs up from the boys
Thank you for the article, "On the road less traveled: They crisscross Iraq, escorting cargo and scouring for threats. Every day brings a sense of purpose. Every mission is a gamble." (Daily Break, Sept. 7).
I am First Sgt. Kevin Wood's wife. Our soldiers are a great bunch of hometown boys, and they all appreciate everyone who recognizes their hard work and sacrifices. As do all soldiers and families who serve with them.
Shelly Wood
Clarksville, Arkansas
Pilot doesn't speak for me
Your editorial on Sept. 6, "Looking for answers on John McCain," stated the GOP "put on a tired show of anti-media anger, economic entitlement and us-versus-them retrenchment." Amazing! According to Nielsen Media Research, 34.5 million viewers over three days watched this "tired show" compared to the 30.2 million viewers who watched the Democratic speakers and fireworks over four days.
Furthermore, you stated that Americans worry that McCain has disavowed his principles. What Americans are you speaking for? The ones on your staff who write these inane editorials and back a loser every four years or the ones who read The Pilot because it's the only paper in town? Get past your liberal biases and find out what people really think before you try to speak for them.
Jim Novelli
Virginia Beach
Intelligence matters more
Shouldn't we all just possibly realize the time has come that we do not need the most experienced candidate this time, but perhaps maybe the smartest?
Warren G. Anthony
Portsmouth
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 11, 2008 Thursday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Obama touts his education plan campaign in Virginia
BYLINE: ALICIA P.Q. WITTMEYER
By Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer
The Virginian-Pilot
NORFOLK
Ahmed Lee's morning bus was packed Wednesday. Students who didn't normally go to school were showing up, he said. Some of his classmates had rushed out to buy Barack Obama shirts for the occasion. And rumor had it that a student who had dropped out of school last year showed up at the office that morning to re-enroll.
The Democratic presidential candidate and senator from Illinois was at Granby High School on Wednesday, visiting a freshman honors world history class, speaking in the school library about his education plans and sending many of the high school's students into a flurry of excitement.
In his second day of speeches focusing on education, Obama hit many of the same points he made during a speech in Ohio on Tuesday, saying he wanted to double funding for charter schools, move toward a system of merit pay for teachers and boost the use of technology in classrooms.
He also took a swipe at the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, for his latest TV commercial, which accuses of Obama of insulting the Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
On a campaign stop Tuesday, Obama used the phrase "lipstick on a pig," when discussing McCain's plans for changing Washington. The McCain campaign charged that the phrase was an insulting reference to Palin, who used this line in her convention speech: "You know, they say the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom? Lipstick."
Obama said it is time to stop the "lies and phony outrage" and focus on "serious debate about where we want to take our nation."
During his classroom visit, students asked Obama what he wanted to be when he was in high school. An architect, he said, once he realized he wasn't going to make the NBA.
When one student wondered what advice he had for students who want to get where he is today, he told her he wasn't sure that is such a good ambition.
"I'm not sure I'd advise everybody to run for president," he said. "I've been sleeping out of hotel rooms for two years now, and I miss my kids."
He went on to tell students to set high expectations for themselves, to learn to work with people who are different than them and to find work that excites them.
As he was leaving the classroom, several students turned around so Obama could sign the backs of their shirts.
During his speech, Obama said McCain hasn't made education a priority and doesn't understand its importance in determining whether America will be successful in the future.
"If we want to out-compete the world tomorrow, we're going to have to out-teach the world today," he said.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle should move past old arguments and realize that both parties have good ideas about improving education, Obama said before detailing his support for ideas typically embraced by conservatives, such as school choice - through charter schools, not voucher programs - and accountability for teachers.
Struggling teachers should be given support so they can succeed, Obama said. But if they're given that support and they're still not successful, they should be removed from the classroom, he said, prompting applause.
Admission to the speech was invitation-only. The audience consisted of parents, teachers, students and local officials. Most of the invitations were given out by the school division, a campaign aide said.
Sophomore Tiffani Gardner, who had been invited to attend the speech, said she was disappointed that she wasn't given a chance to ask the questions she had prepared.
"There were students in here, and we should have gotten a chance," she said.
Still, she said, the talk had only increased her support for the candidate - even though she can't vote.
"He hit all the points," she said. "He's just given himself a big boost."
Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer, (757) 222-5216, alicia.wittmeyer@ pilotonline.com
In Norfolk Haley Everton, left, Summer Shapiro and Torri Kittrell, right, were among the students who met Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on Wednesday during the senator's stop at Granby High School. Obama visited a freshman history class and delivered remarks about his education plan. quotable
"I'm not sure I'd advise everybody to run for president. I've been sleeping out of hotel rooms for two years now, and I miss my kids," Sen. Barack Obama said. inside
Lipstick row shows how the "outrage machine" works; Rep. Thelma Drake weighs in.
Sarah Palin cancels a visit to Hampton Roads.
A judge says he may rule today on anti-Obama ads.
Election coverage, Pages 10-11
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GRAPHIC: Bill Tiernan | The Virginian-Pilot Bill Tiernan | The Virginian-Pilot Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke about his education plan in front of invited parents, teachers, students and local officials Wednesday at Granby High School. The Illinois senator said he wanted to double funding for charter schools, move toward a system of merit pay for teachers and boost the use of technology in classrooms.
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 11, 2008 Thursday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Today could bring yet another outrage
From wire reports
WASHINGTON
John McCain's campaign people are said to be suffering hurt feelings over Barack Obama's comment that McCain's policies are like lipstick on a pig.
Earlier this week, Obama was said to be upset on behalf of the middle class when McCain joked that a rich person is one who makes $5 million.
When a candidate or his war room demands an apology from the other side, you know they are having a good day, experts say. It is the Outrage Machine in motion, leveraging the whole sorry mess into a fundraising opportunity.
"The bad news is, some of this stuff resonates," said Eric Dezenhall, a damage-control specialist. "The good news is, it's only a matter of minutes before we move on to the next outrage."
The current outrage arose Tuesday when Obama used a couple of metaphors to describe how he believed McCain would carry on like President Bush. "You can put lipstick on a pig," he said. "It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink after eight years."
McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, was nowhere in sight in the speech .
But because Palin is a woman and made a lipstick joke at the Republican convention, the McCain campaign took the Democrat's lipstick remark as a sexist smear.
The McCain campaign quickly created an Internet ad juxtaposing Palin's joke with Obama's crack.
Never mind that McCain had described Hillary Rodham Clinton's health plan as lipstick on a pig last year.
Obama appeared outraged at the McCain campaign's outrage.
"What their campaign has done this morning is the same game that has made people sick and tired of politics in this country," Obama said Wednesday.
Some experts agreed.
"While we're concerned about lipstick on pigs - and pigs don't vote and have no constituency - we are missing the point," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, co-author of a new book, "Presidents Creating the Presidency," about presidential use of rhetoric.
Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said the expression is a common one. "The inference in that speech was ... that John McCain was dressing up old ideas," she said. "The use of 'lipstick on a pig' was a colloquial, commonplace way of saying this."
At the same time, she said, Obama can be faulted for "priming" voters about the age of his senior rival for the White House by talking about wrapping an "old fish" in paper called change.
Obama is also getting a lot of mileage over McCain's answer to a question at Saddleback Church about what constitutes a rich person. "Some of the richest people I've ever known in my life are the most unhappy," McCain began. "I think that rich should be defined by a home, a good job, an education. ..."
Then McCain quipped, "How about $5 million?"
All campaigns, Dezenhall says, are populated by operatives "with an active investment in perpetuating a faux pas or a crisis." That's how offhand comments get twisted into frontal assaults. And it may not matter whether or not a campaign has the facts right when it makes an accusation.
What counts, he says, is whether the charge is plausible and plays to type - that McCain is a rich, out-of-touch Republican, for example, or that "Obama is not from America but from an offshore boutique that doesn't value Middle America."
This story was compiled from reports by The Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune.
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The Washington Post
September 11, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
McCain Camp Hits Obama On More Than One Front
BYLINE: Jonathan Weisman and Peter Slevin; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign launched a broadside against Sen. Barack Obama yesterday, accusing him of a sexist smear, comparing his campaign to a pack of wolves on the prowl against the GOP vice presidential pick, charging that the Democratic nominee favored sex education for kindergartners, and resurrecting the comments of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
The assault came a day before the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, when McCain and Obama are scheduled to appear together at Ground Zero during a mutually declared truce. That cease-fire is not likely to last long. With the airwaves already filling up with some of the most negative imagery of the campaign, Obama aides hinted that they would save their toughest counterpunch until after Sept. 11.
"Enough," Obama declared yesterday while campaigning in Norfolk, Va. "I don't care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and Swift boat politics. Enough is enough."
The McCain campaign, meanwhile, sought to portray itself as the victim of unfair smears and sexist attacks against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin even as it pursued its own assaults on Obama. The rhetoric was echoed yesterday on conservative talk radio, the Internet and in the House, where Republican women decried Obama's alleged sexism.
"The Obama campaign has decided that the way to get at Sarah Palin is through personal attacks and sexist insults," Rep. Candice S. Miller (Mich.) said on the House floor.
On a campaign conference call last night, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) lumped together Obama's reference to a female reporter as "sweetie" last May, his decision not to choose Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) or Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his running mate, and his use of the saying "lipstick on a pig" in comments Tuesday to denounce what they call a pattern of sexism.
The attacks over the first three days of this week have come at a sometimes dizzying pace. Within 24 hours, the McCain campaign released a television advertisement saying Obama favored "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners, produced an Internet ad charging that the Democrat had referred to Palin as a pig, then concluded with another ad saying, "Obama's politics of hope? Empty words."
All three of the spots drew outraged responses and charges of dirty politics from Obama and his supporters. "We've got an energy crisis," the candidate said at a campaign event where he had planned to focus entirely on education policy. "We have an education system that is not working for too many of our children and making us less competitive. We have an economy that is creating hardship for families all across America. We've got two wars going on, veterans coming home not being cared for -- and this is what they want to talk about."
McCain allies think they have succeeded in knocking Obama on his heels since he accepted his party's nomination in Denver two weeks ago.
"They really are in a meltdown," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), a McCain adviser.
Obama aides say the assaults will not work, arguing that all of the accusations against him are a reach, if not fabrications. The sexism allegation stemmed from a comment Obama made in Virginia during a talk in which he did not mention Palin.
"Let's just list this for a second," he said Tuesday. "John McCain says he's about change, too. And so I guess his whole angle is, 'Watch out, George Bush. Except for economic policy, health-care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics, we're going to really shake things up in Washington. That's not change. That's just calling some -- the same thing something different. But you know, you can't, you can put, uh, lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig."
The McCain campaign seized on the remark, saying that Obama was alluding to Palin's characterization of herself as a pit bull in lipstick. The Internet ad skips over the introductory words from Obama, juxtaposing Palin's line from her nomination acceptance speech last Wednesday -- "They say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick" -- with Obama's lipstick-on-a-pig phrase, a phrase that McCain also has used, to describe Clinton's health-care plan.
"Ready to lead? No," the ad concludes. "Ready to smear? Yes."
The sex education ad referred to legislation Obama voted for -- but did not sponsor -- in the Illinois Senate that allowed school boards to develop "age-appropriate" sex education courses at all levels. Kindergarten teachers were given the approval to teach about appropriate and inappropriate touching to combat molestation.
The McCain advertisement calls it "Obama's one accomplishment" in education: "legislation to teach comprehensive sex education to kindergartners."
"Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama, wrong on education, wrong for your family," the ad concludes.
Paired with that was another attack. The "wolves" ad alludes to a "mini-army" of lawyers dispatched to "dig dirt" on Palin in Alaska.
"As Obama drops in the polls, he'll try to destroy her," the ad states.
The ad pins the swirl of Internet rumors about McCain's running mate to the Obama campaign. The reference to a mini-army was drawn from a Wall Street Journal column by conservative John Fund. A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee said yesterday that neither it nor the Obama campaign had any researchers or lawyers in Alaska.
It was a McCain surrogate, former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.), who brought back the words of Wright, Obama's former longtime pastor, whose incendiary sermons nearly derailed the Democrat's primary candidacy.
"Frankly, I think Reverend Wright was correct when he says he's just doing what politicians do," Thompson said of Obama as he introduced McCain to a Northern Virginia audience. "That's not the kind of change this country needs."
During a Boston fundraiser, Obama's running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), denounced the negativity, noting that McCain himself faced smears in his 2000 race for the presidency.
"What really disappoints me is the very tactics used against him, they're trying to use against Barack Obama now," he said. "It's literally saddening. I didn't expect it, I didn't expect it. But I guess I should learn to expect everything."
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GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Chris Carlson -- Associated Press; Speaking at Granby High School in Norfolk, Va., Sen. Barack Obama said, "Enough is enough," about his GOP rival's attacks against him.
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The Washington Post
September 11, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
McCain's 'Education' Spot Is Dishonest, Deceptive
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A04
A new John McCain ad caricatures Barack Obama's education record by claiming that his only achievement is to pass legislation ensuring "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners. It implies that its critique of the Democratic presidential nominee has been endorsed by the nonpartisan journal Education Week, when in fact it is a hodgepodge of quotes from a variety of sources stitched together to form a highly partisan political attack.
THE FACTS
Education Week bills itself as the "journal of record" for education professionals. In March last year, it ran a generally positive article about Obama, describing him as one of several Democratic candidates with a demonstrated interest in education policy. The article noted that Obama had gained considerable "grassroots experience" in education problems in Chicago as the member of a board of a school reform initiative known as the Annenberg Challenge. It went on to say that he had not made "a significant mark on education policy" in either the Illinois Senate or the U.S. Senate, but that he had pushed for the expansion of early-childhood education.
The McCain ad includes captions attributing the quotes on accountability and Obama's alleged support for "the existing public school monopoly" to a Washington Post editorial and an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune. (Needless to say, the ad omitted The Post's criticism of McCain for failing to come up with a detailed education plan.) But a casual viewer or listener could easily get the impression that all the quotes came from Education Week.
The McCain ad is wrong when it claims -- in a voice dripping with sarcasm -- that Obama's "one accomplishment" in the education field was a sex education bill for kindergartners. While it is true that Obama supported the bill, he was not one of the sponsors. As far as kindergartners were concerned, the principal purpose of the bill was to make them aware of the risk of inappropriate touching and sexual predators. Other states, including California and Massachusetts, have passed similar legislation.
Obama was more closely identified with other education legislation in the Illinois Senate, including a 2003 bill he co-sponsored to double the number of Chicago charter schools from 15 to 30. On substance, Obama has attempted to tread a fine line between his opposition to vouchers and his support for greater choice for parents, including support for charter schools. In a speech in Dayton, Ohio, earlier this week, he proposed doubling the funding for "responsible charter schools."
THE PINOCCHIO TEST
Nobody expects television ads to be fair and objective analyses of public policy. Almost by definition, the ads are partisan sales pitches, designed to promote one political brand while running down the rival brand. But they should not misrepresent the record of the other side and should clearly distinguish quotes from nonpartisan news sources from standard political rhetoric. The McCain "Education" ad fails this test.
THREE PINOCCHIOS: Significant factual errors
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The Washington Post
September 11, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
The Ads That Aren't;
Candidates Let Media Spread the Message
BYLINE: Paul Farhi; Washington Post Staff Writer
When Democrats turned their attention to national security themes at their nominating convention last month, Sen. John McCain's campaign was ready. In a withering TV commercial called "Tiny," McCain claimed that Sen. Barack Obama had called Iran a "tiny" country that "doesn't pose a serious threat."
As reporters scrambled to vet the claims -- which, it reportedly turned out, distorted Obama's comments -- few noticed something curious about the commercial itself: "Tiny" appeared almost nowhere on the air except in news accounts. Since introducing the much-discussed commercial two weeks ago, in fact, McCain's campaign has bought airtime for it just 10 times.
The McCain ad, in other words, wasn't really much of an ad at all.
In political parlance, "Tiny" was a "vapor," or "ghost," ad. The goal of such spots is to stir up news-media interest rather than to reach voters directly through the purchase of expensive TV time.
Campaign ads-that-aren't are "the oldest trick going," says Kenneth Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin political scientist who tracks political advertising. "You call a press conference, announce the ad, then run it once or twice. It's like Lucy pulling the football from Charlie Brown."
This time around, both major-party candidates have been playing the game, reaping a small bonanza of attention from cable and local news stations that have given the ads a free ride. McCain's campaign has been more aggressive and arguably more effective than Obama's, launching spots that have undercut Obama just when he seemed to be on the ascent.
Yesterday, for instance, the McCain campaign released a commercial called "Lipstick," which attacks Obama for allegedly smearing vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin by saying "You can't put lipstick on a pig." The ad, however, appears to be more of a video press release than a traditional commercial. McCain hasn't announced any airtime buys for it, and at 35 seconds, its length isn't standard for a TV commercial.
Obama's representatives have repeatedly complained about the content of McCain's vapor ads, as well as about the media's coverage of them. Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro blasted McCain for the strategy, saying in a statement that McCain was using "Bush political tactics" to try to "distract the media."
One ad unveiled by McCain quotes unfavorable comments about Obama made by the Democratic nominee's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, during the primaries; this ad has aired just seven times since it was announced two weeks ago, according to Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), an Arlington-based firm that tracks political advertising. Another McCain spot that claimed -- erroneously -- that Obama "made time to go the gym" instead of visiting wounded troops during his visit to Europe this summer has aired just nine times, appearing in only three cities.
In each case, however, broadcast and print reporters gave McCain's claims wide circulation.
By contrast, an ad in which McCain compared Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears has aired more than 12,000 times as a paid spot across the country, according to CMAG. "They've used this tactic to a T," says Evan Tracey, who heads CMAG. "These [ads] feed the media beast the right food at just the right time. It has kept [McCain] relevant and part of the dialogue" at a time when Obama might have commanded the spotlight alone.
A spokesman for McCain, Brian Rogers, declined to discuss the frequency of the ads or other tactics. But he noted that "the reason our ads have gotten so much attention is that they reflect timely and compelling issues in this campaign. . . . The central question is: Is Barack Obama ready to be president?"
Obama has played the vapor-ad game, too. After Hillary Clinton launched a spot during the primaries suggesting that she had the experience to handle a world crisis that could break with "a 3 a.m. phone call" to the White House, Obama responded with a spot attesting to his "judgment and courage" in opposing the war in Iraq. That spot, which used some of the same images as Clinton's original commercial, never aired anywhere except in news stories, according to CMAG.
Similarly, an Obama spot that taunted McCain for owning seven houses appeared briefly in paid spots on cable TV, but received coverage on TV and in newspapers.
Ghost political ads have a long and colorful history, and have often had an impact on perceptions of a political race, says the University of Wisconsin's Goldstein. The ads tend to be featured prominently in local TV news stories about campaigns and elections, he says. According to research that Goldstein directed, nearly one-third of TV stories about senatorial races in 2006 mentioned advertising, and about 20 percent of stories about gubernatorial races did so.
He notes that the Democrats' famous "Daisy" commercial -- which raised doubts about Lyndon Johnson's opponent, Barry Goldwater, by using the image of a little girl picking petals off a daisy to evoke the countdown to nuclear war -- ran just once as a paid commercial during the 1964 race. Thanks to massive publicity about it, "Daisy" remains perhaps the most famous, and infamous, political ad of all time.
In 2004, an independent group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth bought airtime in a handful of markets to run commercials questioning Democratic nominee John Kerry's truthfulness and fitness for office. The subsequent media coverage was so heavy -- particularly on cable TV -- that Kerry had to defend himself against the onslaught.
Tracey says vapor ads may be increasing in frequency due to the rise of YouTube and the proliferation of political blogs. Before they were around, it was more difficult for a campaign to persuade reporters to do stories on a new ad until it was in wide circulation, he says. But nowadays, Tracey says, the ad is on the Internet somewhere almost as soon as a candidate announces it, providing an immediate justification for making a news story out of what is little more than a video press release.
"Ten years ago, this was the number one sin between journalists and the campaign," he says. "No one [in the media] wanted to be seen as taking the campaign's bait. Now there's a willingness on the part of both parties to use and be used. There's a much bigger appetite to accept this kind of content."
Advertising experts say that viewers typically remember a TV commercial only after they've been exposed to it repeatedly, typically 10 or 12 times. But even though ghost ads don't come close to that kind of saturation, they are valuable to a campaign for other reasons. Tracey says such ads don't disrupt the candidate's primary advertising campaign but enable him to muddy his opponent's message or image. McCain's "Troops" helped McCain shift attention away from the stirring images of Obama addressing hundreds of thousands of people at a rally in Germany.
TV stations that air the ads as news "end up making the campaign's point for them, with exactly the words and pictures" the campaign wants, he adds. "The campaign is getting a willing partner in the media because [the media is] filling in the rest of the story for them."
But the news media's willingness to turn over airtime for such unfiltered messages troubles some journalists. "Reporters and news executives fall for this every time," says Brooks Jackson, a veteran political reporter who runs the Annenberg Center's FactCheck.org, which vets political speeches and other campaign statements. He says the ads' flashy images and inflammatory rhetoric make them "irresistible" to TV stations.
"When [the campaigns] tell people that an ad is going to be seen and talked about by everyone, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy" when stations put it on the air, Jackson says. With YouTube and such popular Web sites as Drudge.com, however, "the gatekeeper function that the news media executives used to perform is long gone."
At the very least, Jackson says, the news media should be "pushing back" by sorting out what's true and what's false in the ads.
LOAD-DATE: September 11, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 11, 2008 Thursday
Regional Edition
What's the Pig Deal?;
With a phony flap and a misleading attack ad, the McCain campaign sinks into silliness.
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A16
IT'S HARD to think of a presidential campaign with a wider chasm between the seriousness of the issues confronting the country and the triviality, so far anyway, of the political discourse. On a day when the Congressional Budget Office warned of looming deficits and a grim economic outlook, when the stock market faltered even in the wake of the government's rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when President Bush discussed the road ahead in Iraq and Afghanistan, on what did the campaign of Sen. John McCain spend its energy? A conference call to denounce Sen. Barack Obama for using the phrase "lipstick on a pig" and a new television ad accusing the Democrat of wanting to teach kindergartners about sex before they learn to read.
Mr. Obama's supposedly offending remark was not only not offensive -- it also was not directed at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. "The other side, suddenly, they're saying 'we're for change too,' " Mr. Obama said. "You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig." With a woman on the ticket, apparently all references to cosmetics -- or pork of the non-bridge variety, for that matter -- are forbidden. "Sen. Obama owes Gov. Palin an apology," sniffed former Massachusetts governor Jane Swift. "Calling a very prominent female governor of one of our states a pig is not exactly what we want to see." No matter that Mr. McCain used the lipstick-on-a-pig phrase himself, referring to (female) Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's health-care plan, or that (female) former McCain aide Torie Clarke wrote a book with that title. In the heat of a campaign, operatives will pounce on any misstep and play to the referees over any arguable foul. We understand that, and certainly the Obama campaign has not been above such tactics. But this cynical use of the gender card is unusually silly.
The kindergarten sex ad, exhuming an argument that Republican Alan Keyes used against Mr. Obama in his 2004 Senate race, was equally ridiculous. "Obama's one accomplishment?" the narrator asks. "Legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' -- to kindergartners. Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama: wrong on education. Wrong for your family." As a state senator, Mr. Obama voted for -- though he did not sponsor -- a measure that set out standards for non-mandatory sex and health education. It required that instruction be "age and developmentally appropriate" and allowed parents to have their children opt out. To call this an accomplishment seems a departure for a campaign that was insisting just last week that Mr. Obama had no legislation to his credit, conveniently ignoring his significant work on a lobbying reform bill. Mr. Obama's support for the Illinois measure seems both reasonable and relatively unimportant.
John McCain is a serious man who promised to wage a serious campaign. Win or lose, will he be able to look back on this one with pride? Right now, it's hard to see how.
LOAD-DATE: September 11, 2008
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The Washington Post
September 11, 2008 Thursday
Suburban Edition
She's the Star the GOP Hitched Its Bandwagon To
BYLINE: Kevin Merida; Washington Post Staff Writer
After weeks of mocking Barack Obama as a famous man and that's all, the McCain campaign now has its own celebrity to promote: Sarah Palin, the sudden sensation.
Mad love from the public is always welcome, in politics and entertainment, but the McCain campaign seems to have come to this notion slowly. With the hordes gravitating to Obama in record numbers, Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, penned a memo on July 30 that said: "Barack Obama is the biggest celebrity in the world, comparable to Tom Cruise, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton."
The memo took aim at his gym habits, and the protein bars he eats, and the organic tea he drinks, and went on to say his celebrity status had "fueled a certain arrogance." Concerned that Obama was out of reach, flying at an altitude of 50,000 feet or something, the McCain campaign was determined to bring him down closer to where they could battle him. The campaign ran an ad trying to tie him to Britney and Paris, first-name celebrities known for getting in mindless trouble or doing nothing. The ad's kicker: "But is he ready to lead?"
So much for the dissing of celebrity. Now it's Sarah Palin, a former small-town mayor with 21 months as governor, who is being followed like a rock star. And McCain aides love it. "Entertainment Tonight" was among the media contingents traveling to Alaska with her. She's on the cover of People, Us Weekly and OK! magazines. Her overall favorable rating is about even with McCain and Obama at 58 percent, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. And some demographic segments of the population swoon over her even more. Among white women with children at home, her approval rating is 80 percent. Women have been coming into their local eyewear shops asking for those Palin glasses with the silver temple pieces.
And so it was that people pressed against each other to catch a glimpse of her, even from afar, at yesterday's McCain-Palin rally at Van Dyck Park in Fairfax City, an elaborate showcase for the Alaska governor's own brand of instant celebrity. It wasn't exactly Obama in Berlin or at Denver's Invesco Field, where the Democratic nominee drew unbelievable crowds and the contempt of his Republican opponents for being, well, extremely popular. But it was, by the yardstick of the Republican quest for the presidency, something extraordinary to see. So much so, that the McCain campaign hierarchy is now considering keeping the nominee and her running mate stumping together as a tag team.
The lines to gaze upon Sarah Palin formed early and stretched for more than a mile along Old Lee Highway, as thousands and thousands made their way to the park's grassy hills, and chanted over and over: "Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!" Parents ditched work, and kids skipped school, and the souvenir hawkers did a brisk business working the lines with buttons like: "Hot chicks vote Republican." Many came by foot, many others by shuttle bus from a nearby mall. The size of the crowd was difficult to determine. Police and the McCain campaign estimated it at 23,000.
Celebrity is its own momentum. "It was so cool watching all the people get in line," said Vicki Hoffman, an artist who lives in the neighborhood. "It was like Woodstock."
Those who came were there to take their own measure of the collage of Palin images they had embraced from a distance: hockey mom, field dresser of moose, grandmother-in-waiting, champion of social conservatives, battler of good ol' boy Republicans, historic running mate. Here was a composite version of stardom they could get behind.
"She exemplifies what a genuine feminist is," said Elizabeth Hauris, who owns a company that manufactures cloth diapers. "She's pro-life, pro-family, nurses her son, carries him in a sling, which epitomizes the idea of close attachment." Hauris said she has seen photos of Palin signing bills, baby Trig in tow. "And that thrills me."
Celebrity does not require any special skill -- except to be. Who can say with precision what it is that inspires some to squeal and moan and be moved beyond rationality? Like the man in the camouflage raincoat who stood on the hill with his homemade sign: "Sarah! Will You Marry Me!"
Ann Norman, 21, and her University of Virginia "girls" drove from Charlottesville to Fairfax on Tuesday night, stayed with her cousin, woke up at 4:30 a.m. -- the rally didn't start until 10 -- and were first in line at 5. "We heard there were thousands of people turned away, and we were determined that would not be us," said Norman, a junior.
"We're skipping all of our classes," said fellow junior Lucy Partain. "Don't tell my parents."
"We talk about her every day," said Molly Newcomb, who is majoring in government with a minor in media studies.
"We can't stop talking about her," said Partain, 20.
But why?
"I love that she is a mother, wife and a politician," Partain continued. "That's very admirable. She's not a career politician who's been affected by the Washington games."
Sarah Palin the celebrity?
"It's a different kind of celebrity," said Partain. "She's doing her thing and people are flocking to her."
Her thing, at least onstage, was mostly a support role -- pumping up John McCain. Talking about cutting property taxes as mayor in Wasilla and putting the state's checkbook online as governor wasn't sexy celebrity stuff.
But the crowd was crazy over her. Iris Burkart and the ladies who do Jazzercise together gave up their class for her. "And that's huge," said Beckette Helson, who calls herself "a professional mom."
The ladies also pondered the meaning of celebrity.
"It all depends on how you categorize celebrity," said Burkart, a Loudoun County real estate agent. If you're talking about the most notable, recognizable figures in the world right now, she'd have to say Obama and McCain. But if you're talking about dreamy, larger-than-life, would-love-to-sit-down-to-dinner-with figures, there's only one at the top.
"Sean Connery," said Burkart. "At my age, sweetheart, that's who we go for."
When the rally was over and rope lines had been worked and the motorcade assembled for the drive out of the park, the hordes flocked to Old Lee Highway to get a look at McCain and Palin pulling out of town. The Straight Talk Express bus rumbled slowly down the street, which was lined with picture takers and kids who had climbed trees for a better vantage point. And then the bus stopped, and McCain and Palin got out and went into the crowd. Some pushed to get closer. Others got up on the wooden fences, trying to balance themselves to get a peek.
Brooke Ramos, 18, being home-schooled by her mother, the first year she can vote, just happened to be at the spot where the Straight Talk stopped. After shaking Palin's hand, she just stood shaking, shrieking, dancing in place. She couldn't believe she had touched Sarah Palin. It was as if she had touched a real celebrity, someone like Christian pop-rock star Rebecca St. James, and out burst that time-tested declaration of mad love:
"I'm not going to wash this hand!"
LOAD-DATE: September 11, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Jason Reed -- Reuters; Admirers at the feet of Sarah Palin. "It's a different kind of celebrity," said one. "She's doing her thing and people are flocking to her."
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The Washington Post
September 11, 2008 Thursday
Every Edition
Virginians Fasten Seat Belts as Obama, McCain Dig In
BYLINE: Tim Craig; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: EXTRAS; Pg. LZ04
RICHMOND
Afew months ago, many Republicans were predicting that Virginia's status as a battleground state in the presidential election would be a summer sensation that would quickly fade after Labor Day.
Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) would pull his resources from the state after realizing it would, once again, be reliably red on Election Day.
Privately, some Democrats agreed, pointing to the decision by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) four years ago to abandon Virginia after his state poll numbers failed to move following his party's nominating convention.
But Labor Day has come and gone. And, if anything, the battle over Virginia's 13 electoral votes is getting hotter. Obama and GOP presidential nominee John McCain, the Arizona senator, are spending time and money in Virginia in ways the commonwealth hasn't seen in a generation.
As both candidates prepare for the final two months leading up to the Nov. 4 election, residents should prepare for a campaign that could resemble some of the state's fiercest contests for governor or U.S. senator.
A lot can still change, but it's looking increasingly likely that the presidential contest in Virginia could soon rival some of Virginia's great modern campaigns, including the 2006 race between Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) and former senator George Allen and the 1994 contest between Republican Oliver North and former senator Charles Robb (D).
Many Republicans and Democrats say McCain is favored to win Virginia, which last voted for a Democratic presidential nominee in 1964. But few doubt that winning Virginia has become a top priority for Obama, adding an element of uncertainty to the race.
Obama has been making a strong push for Virginia since midsummer, when he began launching TV ads statewide and started opening 41 offices across the state.
Obama, backed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) and U.S. Senate candidate Mark R. Warner (D), also made several visits to the state before the Democratic National Convention. The visits have continued since the convention.
He also has amassed thousands of volunteers in Virginia, and on any given day his Web site lists dozens of voter registration, canvassing or get-out-the vote activities.
McCain has been slower to engage in Virginia. But that is starting to change.
Shortly before the GOP convention, McCain began airing TV ads on broadcast stations statewide, reversing his earlier decision only to advertise in the Washington media market, where his ads would be seen by political journalists and pundits.
And although he has been to Richmond and Northern Virginia for fundraisers, McCain was scheduled to make his first official campaign stop in the state yesterday with a rally in Fairfax City.
His advisers say he'll be back, and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is expected to appear next week in Virginia Beach.
Not wanting to be overshadowed by McCain, Obama's campaign on Tuesday announced that he, too, would be campaigning in Virginia yesterday.
Obama scheduled an event at a school in Norfolk to discuss his educational policy. Obama's visit to Norfolk followed a stop Tuesday in Southwest Virginia. This week marks the second time in a month that Obama has spent two consecutive days in Virginia.
The candidates' visits and ads are only part of the story. Out of public view, both campaigns are fighting for any attention they can get in the local media through surrogates and daily events.
On Monday, former attorney general Jerry W. Kilgore and Del. Christopher B. Saxman (R-Staunton), co-chairs of McCain's Virginia campaign, held a conference call with Virginia reporters to discuss why they don't think Obama can win the state.
On Tuesday, U.S. senators Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) held a news conference in Arlington County to outline their views on why McCain and Palin are too conservative for voters in Northern Virginia.
The Obama campaign announced the noon news conference at 7 a.m., a possible sign that it was organized at the last minute.
Three hours later -- in an e-mail marked urgent -- the McCain campaign announced it was having a conference call for Virginia reporters that would feature U.S. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R). Bolling and Warner talked about why they think Virginia voters will reject Obama on Nov. 4.
The presidential election is overshadowing the U.S. Senate race between Warner and his Republican opponent, former governor James S. Gilmore III, as well as the congressional races. After he picked up the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police on Monday, Warner spent a few minutes taking questions from reporters.
Three out of four questions were about the presidential race.
All the attention on Virginia is resulting in increasing acrimony between partisans, as evidenced by the uproar this week over whether McCain should be allowed to hold a rally at Fairfax High School.
After it was reported that the rally would be in violation of school policies prohibiting political events during school hours, dozens of angry parents phoned local, state and school officials. Some students and teachers at the Fairfax school began talking of walking out of class in protest.
All this, and it's only mid-September.
If the polls show a close race heading into next month, Virginia voters should get ready for a very bumpy ride.
LOAD-DATE: September 11, 2008
DISTRIBUTION: Loudoun County
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September 11, 2008 Thursday
BYLINE: By James Morrison, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: WORLD; EMBASSY ROW; A09
STIK AND OTHER ISSUES
As she excites Republican activists, Sarah Palin is also sending tingles up the legs of British conservatives who predict she will propel John McCain to victory, and shudders down the spines of liberals who see the threat she poses to Barack Obama.
Six members of the British Parliament, three from the Conservative Party and three from the Labor Party, gave their candid assessments of the U.S. presidential race Wednesday in a forum hosted by the Meridian International Center in Northwest Washington.
Mark Pritchard, a Conservative, broke the taboo on foreign visitors talking about domestic American issues when he delivered a 10-point list of reasons why Mr. McCain will carry the Republicans back to the White House.
His Labor colleagues grimaced.
"I've been advised to stay calm," quipped Angela E. Smith, a Labor member sitting next to Mr. Pritchard on the panel.
Mr. Pritchard, who appeared with his Conservative colleagues Richard Bacon and Mark G. Hoban, predicted a McCain-Palin victory because:
* The surge in Iraq is working;
* Mr. Obama undermined his message of change by picking Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a 35-year veteran of the Senate, as his running mate;
* Mr. Obama ducked a question about abortion by saying it was "above my pay grade;"
* The media have proved themselves biased in favor of Mr. Obama;
* Mrs. Palin has proved to be a "maverick" as governor of Alaska;
* She will help get the women's vote;
* Mr. Obama has responded "badly" to the "Palin story;"
* The U.S. economy is not in as bad a shape as Democrats claim;
* Foreign crises could develop that will highlight Mr. McCain's national security credentials;
* And the Bush administration avoided another Katrina catastrophe by responding quickly to the latest hurricanes.
He even got in a political dig, as Mrs. Smith talked about the revival of the steel industry in a city in her parliamentary district.
"We are now the world's biggest producer of ice-hockey skate blades," she said.
"Hockey moms," Mr. Pritchard injected.
That led to a discussion on lipstick. Mrs. Palin, in a now-famous joke, said the difference between a hockey mom like herself and a pit bull is lipstick. Mr. Obama Tuesday referred to Mr. McCain's platform as warmed-over policies of President Bush.
"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig," the Illinois Democrat said at a campaign rally.
The McCain campaign Wednesday accused his opponent of defaming Mrs. Palin.
Mr. Pritchard, referring to the spat, admitted, "I'm not an expert on lipstick. But I think most Americans are not concerned about whether they wear lipstick or what shade. They want to know what their policies are."
Mrs. Smith challenged him on whether Mrs. Palin will win the female vote.
"Not all feminists support Sarah Palin," she said.
Labor member Mary Creagh added that Mrs. Palin is the new celebrity in the race.
"An unknown mom has been thrust on to the scene. She's taken over from Britney Spears," she said, referring to a McCain campaign ad that compared Mr. Obama to the pop singer. "But no one knows how long this wave will last."
Mrs. Creagh, Mrs. Smith and their Labor colleague Phil Wilson recognized the political threat to the Democratic ticket but predicted Mr. Obama will regain his footing and win the presidency.
Mrs. Creagh called Mr. Obama an "American hero" raised by a single mother who "pulled himself up by his bootstraps."
Mrs. Smith added, "This is the most important U.S. election in some time. It is important to the whole world."
* Call Embassy Row at 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail jmorrison @washingtontimes.com.
LOAD-DATE: September 11, 2008
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September 11, 2008 Thursday
Obama blames 'pig' dust-up on McCain, media
BYLINE: By Christina Bellantoni, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday said the dust-up over his "lipstick on a pig" comment was part of the "silly season," blasting his presidential rival's campaign as having "phony outrage" and blaming the press for fanning the flames.
While taping "The Late Show with David Letterman" in New York, Mr. Obama told Mr. Letterman he did not mean to direct the "common expression" at Republican vice-presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
Mr. Obama said that he meant Republican Sen. John McCain's economic plans were not about "change."
"Keep in mind, had I meant it that way, she would have been the lipstick, you see?" Mr. Obama added. "The failed policies of John McCain would be the pig."
During last week's Republican convention, Mrs. Palin joked about the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull being "lipstick."
Earlier Wednesday, Mr. Obama, speaking to a few hundred people in Norfolk about his education policy, said Mr. McCain seized on his riff about lipstick to provide "catnip" and a "made-up controversy" for the news media.
"The McCain campaign would much rather have the story about phony and foolish diversions than about the future. This happens every election cycle," Mr. Obama said.
In Lebanon, Va., on Tuesday, Mr. Obama blasted Mr. McCain for claiming the mantle of change and said he is just like President Bush.
"You can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig," Mr. Obama said.
Within an hour of the remark, a new "Palin Truth Squad" said Mr. Obama had called Mrs. Palin a "pig," even though Mr. McCain had previously used the same colloquial phrase to talk about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care plan.
Mr. McCain released a new online ad using the lipstick comment and saying Mr. Obama was trying to "smear" Mrs. Palin.
Another McCain ad released Wednesday suggested Team Obama is attacking Mrs. Palin, stating: "As Obama drops in the polls, he'll try to destroy her."
Mr. Obama has responded to the dust-up by saying the country faces big problems, "and this is what they want to talk about."
"This is what they want to spend two of the last 55 days talking about," the Illinois Democrat said. "You know who ends up losing at the end of the day, it's not the Democratic candidate, it's not the Republican candidate, it's you, the American people. Because then we go another year or another four years or another eight years without addressing the issues that matter to you."
He added, "Enough."
"I don't care what they say about me, but I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and swift-boat politics," he said, to applause. "These are serious times, and they call for a serious debate about where we need to take the nation."
Mr. Obama was referring to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that launched attacks against Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race.
Republican Rep. Candice S. Miller of Michigan expressed her outrage over the pig analogy and demanded an apology on the floor of the U.S. House on Wednesday.
"The Obama campaign has decided that the way to get at Sarah Palin is through personal attacks and sexist insults," she said. "Senator Obama might find such jokes funny, but women will only find them insulting."
LOAD-DATE: September 11, 2008
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The Associated Press State & Local Wire
September 11, 2008 Thursday 9:41 AM GMT
Poll: McCain slightly ahead in Va.
Republican John McCain is apparently leading Democrat Barack Obama in the presidential race in Virginia, a state both campaigns are vigorously contesting.
McCain was the choice of 49 percent to 43 percent for Obama in the CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corp. telephone survey of 920 registered voters Friday through Tuesday.
The poll's sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points for either candidate.
Obama campaigned Tuesday and Wednesday in Virginia, hoping to become the first Democrat to carry the state since 1964.
McCain campaigned Wednesday in Fairfax with his running mate, Sarah Palin.
LOAD-DATE: September 12, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 10, 2008 Wednesday
Final Edition
Obama called 'friend of coal';
On Southwest Va. visit, he says coal is crucial to U.S. future
BYLINE: REX BOWMAN; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-1
Hoping to woo coalfield voters who overwhelmingly spurned him in February's Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Barack Obama told a crowd in Appalachian Virginia yesterday that coal - crucial to the local economy - is key to America's future.
"We're the Saudi Arabia of coal," Obama said during a speech on broad economic themes delivered in the Lebanon High School gymnasium. "We can figure out the technology to make it environmentally sound. This is America. We figured out how to put a man on the moon in 10 years."
Obama campaigned in Southwest Virginia on the first day of a two-day swing that takes him to Norfolk today. Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, also are in Virginia today, campaigning in Fairfax County. The dual appearances underscore how much both campaigns prize Virginia's 13 electoral votes.
Obama has campaigned for development of "clean coal" technologies such as turning coal into gas and storing carbon emissions from power plants before they reach the smokestack. Yesterday, his supporters stressed that Obama's calls for more reliance on renewable energy do not mean an uncertain future for coal.
"Senator Obama is a friend of coal," said Rep. Rick Boucher, D-9th, before a roaring, capacity crowd of about 2,400.
The United Mine Workers of America has endorsed Obama, and union President Cecil Roberts took the stage to urge the crowd to work for an Obama victory. "The Republicans have had their chance and they have blown it," he said.
In a conference call yesterday, Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling warned that Obama would raise taxes on the coal industry and criticized Obama for referring to coal as "dirty energy."
"His economic plan would be a disaster for Southwest Virginia," Bolling said.
In February, a columnist for the San Antonio Express News asked Obama about the possibility of taxing emerging energy sources, such as wind power, to fund education. Obama said: "What we ought to tax is dirty energy, like coal and, to a lesser extent, natural gas."
Obama also used yesterday's visit to Lebanon, in mountainous Russell County, to deride his Republican rival, McCain, for portraying himself as an agent of change.
"You can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig," Obama said, noting that the Arizona senator usually sides with President Bush.
Last night former Mass. Gov. Jane Swift, head of the McCain campaign's new Palin Truth Squad, accused Obama of calling Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a pig, and demanded an apology. The Obama campaign said "lipstick on a pig" is a common expression and that Obama was not talking about McCain's running mate.
Whether Obama can stay competitive in the coalfield region is uncertain. While he defeated New York Sen. Hillary Clinton handily in Virginia's Feb. 12 primary, Clinton crushed him in Southwest Virginia, winning more than 80 percent of the vote in six of the seven westernmost counties.
Yesterday, Obama asked voters in the mountainous corner to give him a chance, telling them that his energy plan not only serves the nation's interests, but the interests of the coalfield economy.
Coal plants account for 52 percent of the nation's electricity production, and the federal government estimates there's enough coal in the United States, 273 billion tons, to meet the current power demand for 250 years. On the downside, coal-fired power plants pump significant greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Obama's energy plan calls for:
* Investing $150 billion over 10 years to spur private development of clean energy sources, a plan Obama says will also create 5 million jobs. Among the types of innovations Obama hopes to foster is the clean coal technology.
* Putting a million made-in-America, plug-in hybrid cars - each one capable of getting 150 mpg - on the road by 2015.
* Ensuring that 25 percent of the nations electricity comes from renewable sources - not coal - by 2025.
* And cutting greenhouse gas emissions - another problem associated with coal-fired power plants - by 80 percent by 2050.
McCain's energy plan calls for:
* Expanding exploration for domestic oil and using more of the nation's natural gas.
* Offering a $300 million prize for the commercial development of a battery technology that will prompt the development of plug-in hybrid cars. The plan also calls for a $5,000 tax credit for people who buy cars that emit no carbon - an incentive for automakers to create such cars.
* Constructing 45 nuclear power plants by 2030.
* And slashing greenhouse emissions to 60 percent below their 1990 levels by 2050.
Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or rbowman@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: September 13, 2008
NOTES: BREAKING NEWS 9/9/08 8:22 PM on inRich.com
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Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 10, 2008 Wednesday
Obama 'a friend of coal': On Southwest Va. visit, he calls area crucial to U.S. future
BYLINE: Rex Bowman, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Sep. 10--Hoping to woo coalfield voters who overwhelmingly spurned him in February's Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Barack Obama told a crowd in Appalachian Virginia yesterday that
9/9/08 8:22 PM
on inRich.com coal -- crucial to the economy here -- is key to America's future.
"We're the Saudi Arabia of coal," Obama said during a speech on broad economic themes delivered in the Lebanon High School gymnasium. "We can figure out the technology to make it environmentally sound. This is America, we figured out how to put a man on the moon in 10 years."
Obama campaigned in Southwest Virginia on the first day of a two-day swing that takes him to Norfolk today. Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, also are in Virginia today, campaigning in Fairfax County. The dual appearances underscore how much both campaigns prize Virginia's 13 electoral votes.
Obama has campaigned for development of "clean coal" technologies such as turning coal into gas and storing carbon emissions from power plants before they reach the smokestack. Yesterday his supporters stressed that Obama's calls for more reliance on renewable energy do not mean an uncertain future for coal.
"Senator Obama is a friend of coal," said Rep. Rick Boucher, D-9th, before a roaring, capacity crowd of about 2,400.
The United Mine Workers of America has endorsed Obama, and union President Cecil Roberts took the stage to urge the crowd to work for an Obama victory. "The Republicans have had their chance and they have blown it," he said.
In a conference call yesterday, Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling warned that Obama would raise taxes on the coal industry and criticized Obama for referring to coal as "dirty energy."
"His economic plan would be a disaster for Southwest Virginia," Bolling said.
In February, a columnist for the San Antonio Express News asked Obama about the possibility of taxing emerging energy sources, such as wind power, to fund education. Obama said: "What we ought to tax is dirty energy, like coal and, to a lesser extent, natural gas."
Obama also used yesterday's visit to deride his Republican rival, McCain, for portraying himself as an agent of change.
"You can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig," Obama said, noting that the Arizona senator usually sides with President Bush.
The visit to Lebanon, in mountainous Russell County, was the Illinois senator's fourth trip to Virginia since the end of the Democratic primaries and his second to the southwest corner of the commonwealth; he kicked off his general election campaign in Bristol.
Whether Obama can stay competitive in the coalfield region is uncertain. While he defeated New York Sen. Hillary Clinton handily, 64 percent to 35 percent, in Virginia's Feb. 12 primary, Clinton crushed him in Southwest Virginia, winning more than 80 percent of the vote in six of the seven westernmost counties.
Yesterday, Obama asked voters in the mountainous corner to give him a chance, telling them that his energy plan not only serves the nation's interests, but the interests of the coalfield economy.
"Clean coal technology is something that can make America energy independent," said Obama. "I want to develop new energy sources, especially right here in rural America."
Coal plants account for 52 percent of the nation's electricity production, and the federal government estimates there's enough coal in the United States, 273 billion tons, to meet the current power demand for 250 years. On the downside, coal-fired power plants pump significant greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Obama's energy plan calls for:
--Investing $150 billion over 10 years to spur private development of clean energy sources, a plan Obama says will also create 5 million jobs. Among the types of innovations Obama hopes to foster is the clean coal technology.
--Putting a million made-in-America, plug-in hybrid cars -- each one capable of getting 150 mpg -- on the road by 2015.
--Ensuring that 25 percent of the nations electricity comes from renewable sources -- not coal -- by 2025.
--Cutting greenhouse gas emissions -- another problem associated with coal-fired power plants -- by 80 percent by 2050.
McCain's energy plan calls for:
--Expanding exploration for domestic oil and using more of the nation's natural gas.
--Offering a $300 million prize for the commercial development of a battery technology that will prompt the development of plug-in hybrid cars. The plan also calls for a $5,000 tax credit for people who buy cars that emit no carbon -- an incentive for automakers to create such cars.
--Constructing 45 nuclear power plants by 2030.
--Slashing greenhouse emissions to 60 percent below their 1990 levels by 2050.
Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or rbowman@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: September 10, 2008
ACC-NO: 20080910-RV-Obama-a-friend-of-coal-0910
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 10, 2008 Wednesday
Obama called 'friend of coal': On Southwest Va. visit, he says coal is crucial to U.S. future
BYLINE: Rex Bowman, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Sep. 10--Hoping to woo coalfield voters who overwhelmingly spurned him in February's Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Barack Obama told a crowd in Appalachian Virginia yesterday that coal -- crucial to the local economy -- is key to America's future.
"We're the Saudi Arabia of coal," Obama said during a speech on broad economic themes delivered in the Lebanon High School gymnasium. "We can figure out the technology to make it environmentally sound. This is America. We figured out how to put a man on the moon in 10 years."
Obama campaigned in Southwest Virginia on the first day of a two-day swing that takes him to Norfolk today. Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, also are in Virginia today, campaigning in Fairfax County. The dual appearances underscore how much both campaigns prize Virginia's 13 electoral votes.
Obama has campaigned for development of "clean coal" technologies such as turning coal into gas and storing carbon emissions from power plants before they reach the smokestack. Yesterday, his supporters stressed that Obama's calls for more reliance on renewable energy do not mean an uncertain future for coal.
"Senator Obama is a friend of coal," said Rep. Rick Boucher, D-9th, before a roaring, capacity crowd of about 2,400.
The United Mine Workers of America has endorsed Obama, and union President Cecil Roberts took the stage to urge the crowd to work for an Obama victory. "The Republicans have had their chance and they have blown it," he said.
In a conference call yesterday, Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling warned that Obama would raise taxes on the coal industry and criticized Obama for referring to coal as "dirty energy."
"His economic plan would be a disaster for Southwest Virginia," Bolling said.
In February, a columnist for the San Antonio Express News asked Obama about the possibility of taxing emerging energy sources, such as wind power, to fund education. Obama said: "What we ought to tax is dirty energy, like coal and, to a lesser extent, natural gas."
Obama also used yesterday's visit to Lebanon, in mountainous Russell County, to deride his Republican rival, McCain, for portraying himself as an agent of change.
"You can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig," Obama said, noting that the Arizona senator usually sides with President Bush.
Last night former Mass. Gov. Jane Swift, head of the McCain campaign's new Palin Truth Squad, accused Obama of calling Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a pig, and demanded an apology. The Obama campaign said "lipstick on a pig" is a common expression and that Obama was not talking about McCain's running mate.
Whether Obama can stay competitive in the coalfield region is uncertain. While he defeated New York Sen. Hillary Clinton handily in Virginia's Feb. 12 primary, Clinton crushed him in Southwest Virginia, winning more than 80 percent of the vote in six of the seven westernmost counties.
Yesterday, Obama asked voters in the mountainous corner to give him a chance, telling them that his energy plan not only serves the nation's interests, but the interests of the coalfield economy.
Coal plants account for 52 percent of the nation's electricity production, and the federal government estimates there's enough coal in the United States, 273 billion tons, to meet the current power demand for 250 years. On the downside, coal-fired power plants pump significant greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Obama's energy plan calls for:
--Investing $150 billion over 10 years to spur private development of clean energy sources, a plan Obama says will also create 5 million jobs. Among the types of innovations Obama hopes to foster is the clean coal technology.
--Putting a million made-in-America, plug-in hybrid cars -- each one capable of getting 150 mpg -- on the road by 2015.
--Ensuring that 25 percent of the nations electricity comes from renewable sources -- not coal -- by 2025.
--And cutting greenhouse gas emissions -- another problem associated with coal-fired power plants -- by 80 percent by 2050.
McCain's energy plan calls for:
--Expanding exploration for domestic oil and using more of the nation's natural gas.
--Offering a $300 million prize for the commercial development of a battery technology that will prompt the development of plug-in hybrid cars. The plan also calls for a $5,000 tax credit for people who buy cars that emit no carbon -- an incentive for automakers to create such cars.
--Constructing 45 nuclear power plants by 2030.
--And slashing greenhouse emissions to 60 percent below their 1990 levels by 2050.
Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or rbowman@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: September 10, 2008
ACC-NO: 20080910-RV-Obama-called-friend-of-coal-0910
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Washington Post
September 10, 2008 Wednesday
Suburban Edition
Reduced Dominance Is Predicted for U.S.;
Analyst Previews Report to Next President
BYLINE: Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02
An intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president on future global risks envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy.
The report, previewed in a speech by Thomas Fingar, the U.S. intelligence community's top analyst, also concludes that the one key area of continued U.S. superiority -- military power -- will "be the least significant" asset in the increasingly competitive world of the future, because "nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional force."
Fingar's remarks last week were based on a partially completed "Global Trends 2025" report that assesses how international events could affect the United States in the next 15 to 17 years. Speaking at a conference of intelligence professionals in Orlando, Fingar gave an overview of key findings that he said will be presented to the next occupant of the White House early in the new year.
"The U.S. will remain the preeminent power, but that American dominance will be much diminished," Fingar said, according to a transcript of the Thursday speech. He saw U.S. leadership eroding "at an accelerating pace" in "political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas."
The 2025 report will lay out what Fingar called the "dynamics, the dimensions, the drivers" that will shape the world for the next administration and beyond. In advance of its completion, intelligence officials have begun briefing the major presidential candidates on the security threats that they would be likely to face in office. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) received an initial briefing Sept. 2, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) expected to receive one in the coming days, intelligence officials said.
As described by Fingar, the intelligence community's long-term outlook has darkened somewhat since the last report in 2004, which also focused on the impact of globalization but was more upbeat about its consequences for the United States. The new view is in line with that of prominent economists and other global thinkers who have argued that America's influence is shrinking as economic powerhouses such as China assert themselves on the global stage. The trend is described in the new book "The Post-American World," in which author Fareed Zakaria writes that the shift is not about the "decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else."
In the new intelligence forecast, it is not just the United States that loses clout. Fingar predicts plummeting influence for the United Nations, the World Bank and a host of other international organizations that have helped maintain political and economic stability since World War II. It is unclear what new institutions can fill the void, he said.
In the years ahead, Washington will no longer be in a position to dictate what new global structures will look like. Nor will any other country, Fingar said. "There is no nobody in a position . . . to take the lead and institute the changes that almost certainly must be made in the international system," he said.
The predicted shift toward a less U.S.-centric world will come at a time when the planet is facing a growing environmental crisis, caused largely by climate change, Fingar said. By 2025, droughts, food shortages and scarcity of fresh water will plague large swaths of the globe, from northern China to the Horn of Africa.
For poorer countries, climate change "could be the straw that breaks the camel's back," Fingar said, while the United States will face "Dust Bowl" conditions in the parched Southwest. He said U.S. intelligence agencies accepted the consensual scientific view of global warming, including the conclusion that it is too late to avert significant disruption over the next two decades. The conclusions are in line with an intelligence assessment produced this summer that characterized global warming as a serious security threat for the coming decades.
Floods and droughts will trigger mass migrations and political upheaval in many parts of the developing world. But among industrialized states, declining birthrates will create new economic stresses as populations become grayer. In China, Japan and Europe, the ratio of working adults to seniors "begins to approach one to three," he said.
The United States will fare better than many other industrial powers, in part because it is relatively more open to immigration. Newcomers will inject into the U.S. economy a vitality that will be absent in much of Europe and Japan -- countries that are "on a good day, highly chauvinistic," he said.
"We are just about alone in terms of the highly developed countries that will continue to have demographic growth sufficient to ensure continued economic growth," Fingar said.
Energy security will also become a major issue as India, China and other countries join the United States in seeking oil, gas and other sources for electricity. The Chinese get a good portion of their oil from Iran, as do many U.S. allies in Europe, limiting U.S. options on Iran. "So the turn-the-spigot-off kind of thing -- even if we could do it -- would be counterproductive."
Nearly absent from Fingar's survey was the topic of terrorism. Since the last such report, the intelligence community has projected a declining role for al-Qaeda, which was deemed likely to become "increasingly decentralized, evolving into an eclectic array of groups, cells, and individuals." Inspired by al-Qaeda, "regionally based groups, and individuals labeled simply as jihadists -- united by a common hatred of moderate regimes and the West -- are likely to conduct terrorist attacks," the 2004 document said.
The new assessment saw a continued threat from Iran, however. Fingar predicted steady progress in the Islamic republic's attempts to create enriched uranium, the essential fuel used in nuclear weapons and commercial power reactors. For now, however, there is no evidence that Iran has resumed work on building a weapon, Fingar said, echoing last year's landmark National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which concluded that warhead-design work had halted in 2003.
He said Iran's ultimate decision on whether to build nuclear weapons depended on how its leaders viewed their "security requirement" -- whether they thought their government sufficiently safe in a region surrounded by traditional enemies.
Iranians are "more scared of their neighbors than many think they ought to be," Fingar said. But he noted that the United States had eliminated two of Iran's biggest enemies: Iraq's Saddam Hussein and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
"The United States took care of Iran's principal security threats," he said, "except for us, which the Iranians consider a mortal threat."
LOAD-DATE: September 10, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Thomas Fingar is the top analyst in the U.S. intelligence community.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
September 10, 2008 Wednesday
Suburban Edition
My 38.9 Million Fellow Americans . . .
Viewers flocked to Republicans and rich kids last week, but vampires did not fare so well. We're sure that's pregnant with meaning -- we'll get back to you on that.
Here's a look at the week's nominees and also-rans:
WINNERS
Palin/McCain. Turns out GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain doesn't have to do better than name Tina Fey his vice presidential choice if he wants his acceptance speech to attract even more viewers than Sen. Barack Obama's. One week after the Democratic nominee's speech clocked 38.4 million viewers across multiple broadcast and cable nets -- breaking the record for most watched convention acceptance speech -- McCain eclipsed him by attracting 38.9 million. And Obama got a run for his money when Fey, er, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, clocked 37 million viewers with her speech to the GOP confab.
Fox News Channel. The cable news net's coverage of McCain's speech clocked 9.2 million viewers one night after it logged 9.04 million for Palin's speech. Both telecasts landed in the weekly top 10 programs and are FNC's third- and fourth-highest-rated ever. Fueled by Republican National Convention coverage, FNC averaged 4.2 million prime-time viewers for the week, beating broadcaster ABC.
"90210." CW's redo of Fox's classic soap scored the week's No. 1 ranking among 18-to-34-year-old chicks, the net's target audience. The Zip code, coupled with season debuts of "One Tree Hill," "Gossip Girl" and "Top Model," catapulted CW to No. 1 among all broadcasters for the week with those 18-34 women -- a rare win in any niche for the network.
MTV's Video Music Awards. The cheesetastic Russell Brand-hosted trophy show snagged an average of 8.4 million viewers, to finish right behind FNC's McCain and Palin speech numbers for the week -- and up dramatically from last year's VMA crowd of 7.1 mil.
"Raising the Bar." An average of 7.7 million tuned in for the premiere of Steven Bochco's TNT lawyer drama, making it the biggest series-opening audience in ad-supported cable history.
LOSERS
"True Blood." HBO's vampire drama started slowly Sunday, averaging 1.4 million viewers at 9 in its first telecast. (A repeat at 10:30 logged 672,000 more.) While this is certainly better than last year's unveiling of HBO's "Tell Me You Love Me," which attracted 910,000 viewers in its premiere, it's nowhere near the 4.6 million who watched the opening of "Big Love" in March 2006 or the first telecast of "John From Cincinnati," which HBO perpetrated on an unsuspecting 3 million-plus in the summer of '07.
(In fairness, "John" enjoyed a "Sopranos" lead-in audience of nearly 12 million, while someone at HBO decided the best lead-in for "True Blood" would be a one-hour promo for "True Blood." And of course, viewers do a lot more DVR'ing these days, HBO telecasts episodes multiple times across a week, blah, blah, blah.)
ABC. Saddled with a last-minute, low-rated Hurricane Gustav special Monday at 10, a last-minute scrapping of a NASCAR race (due to weather) Saturday, and a low-rated end-of-summer "America United: Support the Troops" Sunday special, as well as a lineup riddled with repeats against originals on Fox, NBC and CW, ABC finished sixth in prime time for the week, behind not only NBC, CBS and Fox but also FNC and Univision.
The week's 10 most watched programs, in order, were NBC's Sunday night football, Thursday NFL special, Monday "Deal or No Deal," and Tuesday and Wednesday "America's Got Talent"; CBS's "60 Minutes"; Fox's "Bones"; Fox News Channel's Thursday coverage of McCain's acceptance speech and Wednesday coverage of Palin's acceptance speech; and NBC's coverage of McCain's speech.
LOAD-DATE: September 10, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
September 10, 2008 Wednesday
Every Edition
Three Presidents Get My Vote
"Who would you rather have a beer with?"
In presidential politics, that simple question has become a litmus test for a candidate's likability and, it follows, his likelihood of getting elected.
In 2004, according to a Zogby/Williams Identity Poll, 57 percent of undecided voters said they would rather toss back a beer with President George W. Bush than with Democratic nominee John Kerry (even though Bush doesn't drink). During last spring's Democratic campaign, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama chugged beer to counter charges of elitism. (Obama made one Raleigh, N.C., bartender very happy by tipping $18 for a $2 glass of Pabst.) More recently, washingtonpost.com blogger Chris Cillizza called Obama running mate Joseph Biden "the kind of guy voters can imagine themselves having a beer with."
I'd have a beer with any of them. The real question is, which beer?
John McCain's wife, Cindy, is chairwoman of an Anheuser-Busch distributorship, so an appropriate tipple for him might be Budweiser American Ale, the St. Louis company's latest attempt to court craft-beer drinkers. Bud American Ale is more middle-of-the-road than maverick, with caramel malt dominating the flavor, a crisp, dry finish and a touch of fruity hops. It's pleasant enough, but the PR material goes a bit overboard in asserting that "Budweiser American Ale defines a new standard of ale -- The American Ale." That will come as news to the brewers of Liberty Ale and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, who set the parameters for American-style pale ale a generation ago.
Ad hype, like campaign speeches, shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Obama has his own beer connection. In Kenya, his father's birthplace, drinkers of a cut-rate brand called Senator Keg have unofficially renamed it "Obama Beer" to celebrate the Democratic candidate's rise to prominence. Senator Keg isn't exported here, but you can buy another Kenyan brand, Tusker. This European-style golden lager honors George Hurst, co-founder of Kenya Breweries, who was gored to death by a bull elephant. The name is almost an omen for Obama, who will have to dodge another elephant, the GOP pachyderm.
Let's extend this fantasy game further. Suppose you could have a beer with any U.S. president, living or dead. Who would be your barmate?
My one criterion: The president must enjoy the beer as much as I do. That narrows the field to three: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Grover Cleveland.
Washington was a home-brewer. One of his recipes, for a molasses-based brew, is preserved in the New York Public Library. Later in life he acquired a taste for porter, ordering up to "three gross" bottles at a time from a Philadelphia brewer named Robert Hare.
Jefferson was an oenophile, but when the War of 1812 cut off supplies of European wines, he turned to beermaking with an unbridled enthusiasm, producing up to 200 gallons a year of a wheat-based ale at Monticello. His brewer was a slave named Peter Hemings, older brother of the more famous Sally Hemings.
Williamsburg AleWerks, a microbrewery in the former Virginia capital, brews a Washington's Porter, full of roasty and bittersweet chocolate flavors, and a spritzy, golden Colonial Wheat Ale. Brewery manager Charles Haines acknowledges that these are not re-creations of old recipes. He says his porter, brewed with seven malts, is more complex than the versions Washington would have quaffed (and it contains no molasses). As for his wheat beer, Haines explains that golden-colored ales brewed with lightly toasted grains were unknown in Jefferson's era: "They roasted grain in ovens, they did it in skillets. Everything was brown."
Does Haines think Washington or Jefferson would have appreciated his beers? "Everybody liked beer back then!" he replies.
Grover Cleveland was our only president to serve non-consecutive terms (1885-1889 and 1893-1897). While rising through the political ranks in Buffalo, he was a frequenter of bars and a prodigious consumer of lager. He groused of the White House fare: "I must go to dinner. I wish it was to eat a pickled herring, a swiss cheese and a chop at Louis' [his favorite saloon] instead of that French stuff I shall find."
If I were clinking glasses with Grover today, I'd choose a pre-Prohibition-style lager, maybe Participation Lager from Magic Hat Brewing in South Burlington, Vt. It's brewed with 20 percent flaked maize for extra smoothness, but it has a firm malt body and a landslide of flowery Hallertau and Columbus hops. This special-release brew is available only in the Participation Variety 12-Pak, on sale through Election Day.
Suitable for any chief executive is Capitol City Brewing's Election Ale, a crisp, drinkable golden ale to debut Sept. 24 at the local brew pub chain's three branches. After Election Day, head brewer Mike McCarthy says, he'll add an extra ingredient (probably honey) from the winning candidate's home state to create Inaugurale, which will linger until the cheering is over on Jan. 20.
Greg Kitsock's Beer column appears every other week. He can be reached at food@washpost.com
LOAD-DATE: September 10, 2008
DISTRIBUTION: Montgomery County
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Magic Hat Brewing; Magic Hat's special-release Participation Lager will be sold through Election Day.
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The Associated Press State & Local Wire
September 10, 2008 Wednesday 10:00 PM GMT
Judge to rule swiftly in Obama-abortion ad case
BYLINE: By LARRY O'DELL, Associated Press Writer
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL
A conservative group that claims its ads would tell "the real truth" about Barack Obama's abortion views should learn Thursday whether it will be subject to federal election restrictions on fundraising and advertising.
U.S District Judge James Spencer pledged a swift ruling after hearing arguments Wednesday on The Real Truth About Obama Inc.'s motion for a preliminary injunction that would free it from regulations governing political action committees, or PACs.
The group's lawyer, James Bopp Jr. of Terre Haute, Ind., told Spencer that numerous courts have held that the type of "issue advocacy" planned by his client is exempt from Federal Election Commission restrictions because it would not expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate.
"This is campaign finance law. This is not 'we get to regulate whatever you say in a democracy' law," Bopp said during a nearly hourlong hearing.
David Kolker, an attorney for the FEC, said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that restrictions can be applied to activities that are "the functional equivalent of express advocacy."
He also said the plaintiffs failed to meet their burden of proving they would suffer irreparable harm if an injunction is not issued.
Bopp, a member of the Republican National Committee who was an adviser to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, disagreed. He said the group cannot solicit funds or begin its project because of the threat of hefty fines or criminal prosecution. According to Bopp, the organization has already received one unsolicited $10,000 donation, which is double the legal limit for an individual contribution to a PAC.
The hearing was conducted the same day that both Obama and Republican John McCain campaigned in Virginia, which hasn't backed a Democrat for president since 1964 but is viewed as an important battleground state this year.
The Real Truth About Obama, formed by anti-abortion activists, wants to run ads on its Web site and on the Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity talk shows in key states during the "electioneering communication" blackout period 60 days before the general election.
The ad features an Obama-like voice saying he would make taxpayers pay for all abortions, ensure minors' abortions are concealed from their parents, appoint more liberal Supreme Court justices and legalize the late-term procedure that abortion opponents call "partial-birth" abortion.
Obama's campaign has declined to respond to the organization's proposed ad. Obama supports abortion rights.
LOAD-DATE: September 11, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire
Copyright 2008 Associated Press
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 9, 2008 Tuesday
Correction Appended
Final Edition
Senate campaign picks up;
Gilmore begins TV ad, Warner garners two endorsements
BYLINE: JEFF E. SCHAPIRO; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. B-6
Jim Gilmore is on the attack again in the U.S. Senate contest - this time, in his first television commercial - while Mark R. Warner is harvesting endorsements from Republican-friendly groups.
Gilmore, trailing in the polls and fundraising, hits Warner in a 30-second ad for breaking a promise not to raise taxes as governor. The spot also ties Warner to fellow Democrat Barack Obama, the presidential nominee.
The commercial, paid for by the Republican Party of Virginia, is running on cable and over-the-air stations in all areas of the state but the pricey Washington, D.C., suburbs. The ad went up over the weekend.
Warner, meantime, picked up the backing of the state wing of the Fraternal Order of Police and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The FOP's national unit is supporting John McCain, the Republican nominee for president. The chamber has been closely aligned with the GOP on tax, regulatory and employment issues.
The state FOP endorsed Gilmore for attorney general in 1993, but supported his opponent for governor in 1997 because of legal opinions the group considered hostile to police. The FOP backed Warner for governor in 2001.
Gilmore, who preceded Warner as governor, has steadily pelted the Democrat on the defining event of his administration: a $700,000 annual tax increase passed in 2004 for police, education and human services that Warner said was necessary to restore state finances disrupted, in part, by Gilmore's costlier-than-expected car-tax cut.
Warner, who joined FOP leaders and law-enforcement officials from across the state at a General Assembly Building news conference, dismissed the Gilmore commercial as "tired, old partisan politics."
While he described Obama as "the right choice," Warner said that the nominee - to carry Virginia, a state that hasn't backed a Democrat for president since 1964 - "has got to get past the media image that has been created."
The Gilmore ad claims Warner is committed to "even higher taxes, bigger spending and limiting domestic oil production - costing you more at the pump." It seeks to channel support for McCain to Gilmore, saying both "will keep America safe, keep taxes low and brings down gas prices."
The Warner-Gilmore duel played out on the eve of Obama's latest trip to Virginia. This afternoon, Obama appears in Lebanon, in Southwest Virginia, hoping to win over white working-class voters, some of whom may tip to McCain.
Warner, who campaigned earlier this summer with Obama in Bristol, will not join Obama today . Warner will be raising money in Hampton Roads.
McCain and his vice-presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, visit Northern Virginia tomorrow . Gilmore will be there, though it was not clear whether he would appear with the ticket.
"We are still ironing out the final details, but Gov. Gilmore will be there," said Gilmore press secretary Ana Gamonal.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: September 12, 2008
CORRECTION-DATE: SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
CORRECTION: The tax increase that passed in Virginia in 2004 raised about $700 million annually in the two-year budget cycle. An incorrect figure appeared on Page B6 yesterday in an article about the U.S. Senate race in Virginia.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 9, 2008 Tuesday
Senate campaign picks up: Gilmore begins TV ad, Warner garners two endorsements
BYLINE: Jeff E. Schapiro, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Sep. 9--Jim Gilmore is on the attack again in the U.S. Senate contest -- this time, in his first television commercial -- while Mark R. Warner is harvesting endorsements from Republican-friendly groups.
Gilmore, trailing in the polls and fundraising, hits Warner in a 30-second ad for breaking a promise not to raise taxes as governor. The spot also ties Warner to fellow Democrat Barack Obama, the presidential nominee.
The commercial, paid for by the Republican Party of Virginia, is running on cable and over-the-air stations in all areas of the state but the pricey Washington, D.C., suburbs. The ad went up over the weekend.
Warner, meantime, picked up the backing of the state wing of the Fraternal Order of Police and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The FOP's national unit is supporting John McCain, the Republican nominee for president. The chamber has been closely aligned with the GOP on tax, regulatory and employment issues.
The state FOP endorsed Gilmore for attorney general in 1993, but supported his opponent for governor in 1997 because of legal opinions the group considered hostile to police. The FOP backed Warner for governor in 2001.
Gilmore, who preceded Warner as governor, has steadily pelted the Democrat on the defining event of his administration: a $700,000annual tax increase passed in 2004 for police, education and human services that Warner said was necessary to restore state finances disrupted, in part, by Gilmore's costlier-than-expected car-tax cut.
Warner, who joined FOP leaders and law-enforcement officials from across the state at a General Assembly Building news conference, dismissed the Gilmore commercial as "tired, old partisan politics."
While he described Obama as "the right choice," Warner said that the nominee -- to carry Virginia, a state that hasn't backed a Democrat for president since 1964 -- "has got to get past the media image that has been created."
The Gilmore ad claims Warner is committed to "even higher taxes, bigger spending and limiting domestic oil production -- costing you more at the pump." It seeks to channel support for McCain to Gilmore, saying both "will keep America safe, keep taxes low and brings down gas prices."
The Warner-Gilmore duel played out on the eve of Obama's latest trip to Virginia. This afternoon, Obama appears in Lebanon, in Southwest Virginia, hoping to win over white working-class voters, some of whom may tip to McCain.
Warner, who campaigned earlier this summer with Obama in Bristol, will not join Obama today . Warner will be raising money in Hampton Roads.
McCain and his vice-presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, visit Northern Virginia tomorrow . Gilmore will be there, though it was not clear whether he would appear with the ticket.
"We are still ironing out the final details, but Gov. Gilmore will be there," said Gilmore press secretary Ana Gamonal.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: September 9, 2008
ACC-NO: 20080909-RV-Senate-campaign-picks-up-0909
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
September 9, 2008 Tuesday
Metro Edition
GILMORE AIRS TV AD ATTACKING WARNER
BYLINE: Janelle Rucker janelle.rucker@roanoke.com 981-3159
SECTION: VIRGINIA; Campaign Notebook; Pg. B4
Former Gov. and U.S. Senate candidate Jim Gilmore has his first campaign television ad on the air, attacking Democratic rival Mark Warner on taxes and linking him to presidential nominee Barack Obama.
The ad, which began airing over the weekend, aligns Gilmore with Republican presidential nominee John McCain, depicting them as a tandem that will hold down taxes and reduce gas prices. The 30-second spot, paid for by the state Republican Party, is airing in all Virginia media markets except Northern Virginia, according to Gilmore's campaign.
The ad opens with footage from a debate during the 2001 governor's race in which Warner declared: "I will not raise your taxes." As governor in 2004, Warner pushed a tax increase through the Republican-run General Assembly, saying it was essential to shoring up the state's finances.
The Gilmore ad states that Warner "broke his word ... and gave us the largest tax increase in Virginia history." It also shows images of Warner campaigning with Obama, and accuses the Democrat of "talking even higher taxes, bigger spending and limiting domestic oil production."
Warner said Monday that the ad misrepresents his positions. He also accused Gilmore of understating the severity of the budget problems Warner inherited after Gilmore left the governor's office. Warner leads Gilmore in public opinion polls and has an enormous funding advantage that allowed him to begin television advertising in June.
Gilmore has tried to make taxes and gasoline prices central issues in the campaign, calling for immediate steps to expand offshore oil drilling and allowing drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Warner has said he supports lifting a federal moratorium on offshore drilling and allowing coastal states to decide whether to allow it. But Warner said drilling must be part of a broader energy strategy that includes expanding the use of alternative energy sources and new vehicle technologies, among other things.
Warner picked up endorsements Monday from the Fraternal Order of Police of Virginia and from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Warner traveled to Richmond to receive the Virginia FOP endorsement, which he did not get in his 2001 run for governor.
Thomas Stiles, the organization's immediate past president, said Warner "worked with us in a responsible and honest way as he grappled with the revenue shortfalls that Virginia faced when he took office in 2002."
--Michael Sluss
Goode's rival criticizes fundraiser on Sept. 11
Tom Perriello, Democratic candidate in the 5th Congressional District, called for U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode to cancel what Perriello called an "inappropriate" fundraiser scheduled for Thursday.
Perriello said the fundraiser for Goode, R-Rocky Mount, hosted by the leading Van Scoyoc Associates political action committee in Washington is inappropriate to have on the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
"This is typical pay to play," said Jessica Barba, Perriello's communication director. "You give me the federal max to my campaign, and I'll get you what you want" from the Appropriations Committee, on which Goode sits.
Goode shrugged off Perriello's request as typical campaign season politics. Goode said the fundraiser luncheon, scheduled from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Thursday, will not interfere with other events he plans to attend commemorating the attacks.
Two individuals, Thomas Lankford and Jan Schoonmaker, lobby for defense contractors and universities respectively as part of Van Scoyoc. Their most recent contributions to Goode: $500 and $250, respectively, according to campaign finance data.
Goode said he knows the company as a lobbyist for Virginia Tech.
Perriello said the fundraiser and contributions are another example of something that "makes sense in Washington but not in Southside Virginia. The best way to celebrate [Sept. 11] is making sure we're doing everything we can to the protect troops. ... Having events with corporate lobbyists in Washington isn't the way to go."
-- Janelle Rucker
LOAD-DATE: September 10, 2008
GRAPHIC: Photo 1 Mark Warner Began airing TV ads in June. 2 Jim Gilmore Ad criticizes tax increases. 3 Tom Perriello Said lunch isn't appropriate. 4 Virgil Goode Will go ahead with event.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
September 9, 2008 Tuesday
Metro Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B8
Pickens gets it: Clean energy will move us forward
When an oilman and environmentalists agree, you know the momentum for real change is building. Yet that is just what is happening.
In Denver the other week, Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens and Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope talked about the Pickens Plan, which calls for huge increases in investment and production of wind power and using American natural gas as a transition.
In a recent ad publicizing the plan, Pickens says the current debate over drilling "misses the point." As a Sierra Club member, I concur. The current political emphasis on whether to open up more of the coastline to drilling is a distraction, a "head fake." Pickens, who's made billions from oil, believes the Bush administration is wildly exaggerating how much oil can be found offshore and in Alaska.
The failed policies of the past won't move us forward or bring down fuel prices. True economic opportunity for all Americans is in clean energy technologies like wind and solar. Even Pickens understands that. The question is, when will our leaders in Washington?
PATRICK M. McLENDON
Blacksburg
McCain has revealed lack of judgment
John McCain has said that he'd rather lose an election than lose a war. Apparently this same sense of integrity did not inform his choice of a running mate.
After months of criticizing Barack Obama for lack of experience and running sleazy ads comparing him to vapid celebrities, McCain has chosen a running mate with no experience, and apparently used a vetting process less stringent than a celebrity would need to get a placement on a "reality" TV show.
Rather than carefully considering who would be the best person for the job, McCain has made a rash and crass political calculation, betting that he can peel enough women supporters away from Obama to make the difference in this election. However, what his choice reveals to me is that he is erratic and has poor judgment.
That, along with his explosive temper and self-admitted superstitious nature, makes me think that he is exactly the wrong person to be leading the country at this time. The last thing we need in office after eight years of George W. Bush is another intellectually stunted cowboy with a penchant for bombastic rhetoric and no apparent regard for thoughtful decision-making.
Jason Martin
Pembroke
Palin made her choice: ambition
So much for the Republicans touting themselves as the party that best represents family values. In vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's case, one should pity her family.
By accepting Sen. John McCain's invitation to join him on the Republican ticket, she has tossed her daughter, future son-in-law, husband and all her relatives to what Republicans might characterize as the media wolves for a chance to sit in the White House. Relevant or not, her family's private affairs and history are being blazoned abroad for all to see.
If she were an exemplar of honoring commitments to the family, Palin would have been sensitive to her young daughter's vulnerability and rejected the invitation to cast her lot with McCain; and further, if McCain and his advisers really were pro-family (and as they were fully aware of her daughter's circumstances), they would not have invited Palin to join him on the ticket.
Jon Harris
Eagle Rock
Tapping Palin was cynical and insulting
I am so angry at John McCain. His selection of Sarah Palin is an insult to those 18 million Hillary Clinton supporters he is clearly trying to entice to vote for him and to voters everywhere.
Not only does Palin not represent the values of Hillary Clinton, but her social values are so extreme that they shock the conscience of all but the fervent few who would bar abortion even in cases of rape or incest.
As if that were not enough, McCain's hasty and ill-advised choice speaks volumes about his disrespect for women across this nation. The very thought that I, or any other woman, would vote for him just because there is a woman on his ticket is an insult to women's ability and desire to examine the issues and vote for the person who best represents their interests.
McCain and Palin are not those people.
Further, the shabby process used to select Palin may be a good indicator of how he would choose other advisers and judges on whom our very lives may depend. That is cold comfort and speaks to McCain's poor judgment and cynicism.
Sheila Winett
Blacksburg
Ask pertinent questions before you vote
I am not running for office and am not expected to have all the answers. Nonetheless, I do have 10 questions.
How does a country win a war that it started based upon misinformation?
Does bad luck, being a maverick or being incompetent best explain a pilot who loses five airplanes?
Would an accelerating fuel tax over the past 30 years have reduced our dependence on foreign oil?
On what basis does a country impose its form of government on another country?
At what point does mixing government and religion create a theocracy?
What value should be placed on education in a global economy?
How many wars have been started in the name of religion?
What are the consequences of having a $3 trillion annual budget with a $10 trillion debt?
How can shock-and-awe war strategies effectively address a multicountry terrorist insurgent strategy?
Why debate whether there is global warming when the strategies to address it make sense either way?
I urge all voters to raise their own questions, seek answers and then decide for whom they should vote in November.
Daniel E. Vogler
Newport
Elderly series grand; cartoon potshot not
Thank you for the wonderful series of articles in The Roanoke Times this year on caring for the elderly. I appreciate the well-written stories and unbiased writing.
"The Age of Uncertainty" article featured on the front page Sunday, Aug. 17 ("The costly years"), was particularly well-written and very informative.
However, many of the editorials that I see in The Times express the opposite position to the view that I hold. That's all right because we live in a country that values free speech and have a Constitution that supposedly guarantees the privilege to speak freely without fear of government censorship.
However, the cartoon in the Sept. 4 paper goes too far. Abstinence-only teen maternity tops sold by the GOP! The obvious intent is to poke fun at the Republican vice presidential candidate and her teenage daughter.
Self-righteousness is just as unbecoming on the left as it is on the right. Please continue to print wonderful articles like the series on the elderly population, but try to leave the ugly cartoons out of The Times.
Beverly Strouth
Ferrum
Enough with warning about sin and damnation
Enough is enough. I am tired of every day seeing another letter to the effect that homosexuals are sinning and going to hell. There are more important issues facing us today.
Let's worry about Iraq, gas prices, health care or who is going to lead this country for the next four years.
For all you people writing these letters telling the homosexuals that they are sinning, well, I hate to tell you that you too are a sinner and if you don't repent too, you will be neighbors with the homosexual in hell. The Bible that I read says that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that no sin is greater than the other.
God says hate the sin, but love the sinner. So for all of you who think that you are a non-sinning person, I am praying for you.
Rob Siner
Roanoke
LOAD-DATE: September 10, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
Tahlequah Daily Press (Oklahoma)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
September 9, 2008 Tuesday
Inches from the Oval Office
BYLINE: Teddye Snell, Tahlequah Daily Press, Okla.
Sep. 9--They have little in common: One is a man, a Democrat, someone who's spent most of his life in national public service. The other is a woman, a Republican, who's had no political experience outside of being a mayor of a small town and who's served less than two years as governor of her home state.
They're Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and one will end up a heartbeat away from the presidency after Nov. 4.
Both parties insist they've chosen the right person for the job, despite inconsistencies in their party's message.
The Democrats are running on a platform of change, yet nominated a lifetime politician. After railing against the Democrats, saying Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., didn't have the experience to be commander-in-chief, the Republicans nominated a 44-year-old who's had less experience than other potential Republican nominees, a virtual political unknown.
So who's the most fit to serve as second in command? The Daily Press conducted an online, informal poll, asking readers -- based on what they know so far, and trying to set aside feelings about the presidential nominees -- which of the vice presidential nominees they view most favorably.
Poll results indicated that of 101 respondents, 56.49 percent prefer Palin, while 40.41 percent believe Biden would be the best choice.
While the online poll indicated Palin as the favorite, some in the area are not convinced she's qualified to do the job, including longtime Tahlequah resident Jeannette Wilson.
"The job of vice president is to work with the president to reach policy goals," said Wilson. "I feel Joe Biden is by far the superior of the two choices. Sarah Palin does not seem to have the foundation to reach this goal. She seems to have taken her NRA membership as a license to shoot off her mouth."
Wilson pointed out the vice president is but one heartbeat away from the presidency, and said this means the person must have the knowledge to deal with economic issues, foreign policy and domestic policy.
It's no secret Biden has a long history of foreign policy experience, and has served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"Sarah Palin appears to think that a trip to the 'lower 48' qualifies as a foreign trip," said Wilson. "Biden has worked with economic issues and policy in his state as well as the Senate. Palin touts the energy production of Alaska. If she works so well with these companies, why is most of the North Slope oil being sold to China and not the U.S.? I feel the United States would be more secure and safer with a Biden as VP than with a Palin."
NSU Professor of Communication Studies and Mass Communication Dr. David Scott believes if Biden and Palin were running at the top of the ticket, the race wouldn't even be close.
"Biden is much better prepared for the presidency," he said. "It is interesting to note that Palin's profile most closely fits Spiro Agnew's experience upon being nominated for the VP slot."
Scott said Agnew was also a two-year governor from a small state, and that both attacked the media as being "liberal," making abrasive speeches that pleased the right wing of the Republican party.
"It is interesting to note that a bipartisan Alaska State Senate Legislative Counsel Committee is currently investigating claims that Palin abused her office to get the Alaska Public Safety commissioner fired because he refused to dismiss her ex-brother-in-law who served as a state trooper," said Scott. "Agnew ultimately had to resign as VP as a result of ethics violations from his years as a Maryland politician."
Indeed, some of Palin's actions as an elected official have come under fire recently. In a report by the Associated Press, some of Palin's remarks during her acceptance speech were "fact-checked" and revealed she had been less than truthful.
Palin said she worked to "end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress," and had told Congress "thanks but no thanks for that Bridge to Nowhere."
But according to the AP, when Palin served as mayor of Wasilla, she hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. As for the "Bridge to Nowhere," Palin only opposed the proposal after the plan was ridiculed in the national media.
Palin's personal life has also garnered close scrutiny after she announced her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is unmarried and five months pregnant.
Another report by Time magazine pointed out that while Palin was running for mayor of Wasilla -- a historically non-partisan position -- the state Republican party came in and worked to see that she was elected. Palin ran on standard Republican issues, including gun owners' rights and opposition to abortion.
After being elected to the mayoral position, Palin dismissed almost all the city department heads who had been loyal to her predecessor, some of whom had worked to get her elected. There was, at one point, talk of a recall, but Palin's opponents in the city council eventually opted to reconcile.
Palin also inquired about having books banned from the local library, saying some had "inappropriate language" in them.
A recent poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports indicates 51 percent of people believe the media is being too harsh with Palin. Scott believes personal concerns shouldn't enter into the political debate.
"I think the media's focus on Palin's family issues was inappropriate," he said. "Barack Obama has clearly stated the Palin kids should be 'off-limits' in terms of media attention."
NSU English Professor Dr. Sharon Winn doesn't necessarily agree.
"I don't think the media has been too hard on Palin," she said. "That's what you get when you step into the national spotlight, especially as a complete unknown."
Other polls indicate the Republicans were harsher than Democrats during speeches given at the convention, and Palin has been labeled the party's "pit bull."
Fritz Laux, associate professor of business administration at NSU, believes Republicans are more frank and direct in their message.
"You might say the Republicans have been 'harder' in their attacks on Democrats, but I'd put it differently," said Laux. "I'd say the Republicans -- talking more specifically about McCain and Palin versus Obama and Biden -- simple spoke more directly and plainly. This may look 'harder,' but I don't believe it is. Repeating ad nauseum that McCain would be a third term of the Bush administration is clearly not true; you can check the DNA. Thus, it's just mush. The Republicans have been telling the truth about Obama and Biden, and that has a sharper and harder impact."
Laux views the Democrats' attacks as "dishonest and cheap," which, in his opinion, may render them less effective.
"The Republican attacks may seem harder, but this is only because they are more effective," he said. "They're more effective simply because they are honest. Learning to know that truth and to be honest takes hard work and discipline. It's not as easy to do as people think. The honest person can speak with a moral authority and force that's hard to imitate."
Despite her party affiliation as a Democrat, Winn believes Palin is an effective speaker, and looks forward to the vice presidential debates. She watched both Biden's and Palin's acceptance speeches during the conventions.
"I thought both did well, though Palin was really good," said Winn. "She's poised and confident and can tell a joke. I noted the Republicans joked a lot more than the Democrats, probably because their convention was after the Democratic convention, which gave their writers grist for jokes. I didn't necessarily believe Palin, but she's a formidable speaker."
Isabel Baker, delegate to the Democratic convention, pointed out that Palin failed to talk about several issues of concern: "I have a lot of respect for Gov. Palin, but did you notice in her speech that she mentioned nothing about the economy, health care, protecting Social Security, national security, education for all of our children or taking care of our veterans and their families?"
Regardless of their personal feelings, all those interviewed indicated they plan to watch the debate. Some said it may be the most-watched debate in political history.
Scott, as a former debate coach for NSU, believes the debate process has been watered down over the years.
"I think Biden is the better debater; however, the ground rules for today's broadcast political debates are designed to limit exchanges between the candidates and extensive questioning by reporters," he said. "Today's debates are more of a battle of memorable sound bites. In that context, Palin could very well 'win' the debate."
For more stories, visit http://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, Tahlequah Daily Press, Okla. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: September 10, 2008
ACC-NO: 20080909-TD-VICE-PRESIDENTIAL-CANDIDATES-20080909
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
The Washington Post
September 9, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
Gilmore Seeks Some McCain Momentum
BYLINE: Tim Craig; Washington Post Staff Writer
DATELINE: RICHMOND, Sept. 8
Republican U.S. Senate candidate James S. Gilmore III's new TV ad tries to latch on to the momentum of the GOP presidential ticket by aligning the former Virginia governor with the policies of Sen. John McCain.
The ad also seeks to tie Democratic candidate Mark R. Warner to Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the Democratic presidential nominee.
But Warner, also a former governor, picked up endorsements Monday from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Fraternal Order of Police, two groups that traditionally support GOP candidates.
"People know my record of independence," Warner said.
Gilmore sees an opportunity to jump start his campaign by tying his run to the enthusiasm among Republicans over McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
"We need Jim Gilmore in the U.S. Senate, and so does John McCain," states a narrator in the ad, who adds that McCain and Gilmore are "veterans who will keep America safe, keep taxes low and bring down gas prices."
The ad, which is being paid for by the Virginia Republican Party and includes footage of McCain-Gilmore signs, is the most visible example to date that Virginia's Senate race is becoming entwined in the state's newfound status as a battleground in the presidential race.
Although recent polls indicate that Obama and McCain (Ariz.) are locked in a close race in Virginia, Warner has consistently held a double-digit lead over Gilmore. Warner also had more than $5 million in the bank as of June 30, compared with Gilmore's $116,000.
Gilmore suffered another setback last week when Del. Robert G. Marshall, the Prince William County antiabortion activist who ran for the GOP nomination for Senate in June, said he will not endorse his former rival. Marshall accused Gilmore of running a nasty campaign during their nomination fight.
To counteract those and other doubts about Gilmore, Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick (Prince William), chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, said the state party would step up its efforts to tie Warner to Obama.
"The more people learn about Mark Warner, the less they like him," Frederick said. "The fact is, he is a liberal who makes campaign promises he doesn't keep."
Gilmore will join McCain and Palin at a rally Wednesday in Fairfax County. Obama will hold a town hall meeting today in southwestern Virginia, but Warner will not attend because he has a previously scheduled fundraiser.
At a news conference in Richmond on Monday, Warner called Gilmore's ad linking him to Obama "tired old partisan politics."
"I think Senator Obama is the right choice, but I also know I have a lot of McCain-Warner supporters," said Warner, whose campaign will respond to Gilmore's ad with one of its own.
Quentin Kidd, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University, said Gilmore is smart to try to link himself to McCain, saying it is his "only chance" to improve his standing in the polls.
"Palin's selection has really energized the Republican base, and Gilmore is essentially trying to capture that momentum," said Kidd, who thinks that McCain improved his standing in Virginia by selecting Palin.
But Warner is also determined to win over Republican voters.
He was surrounded by a dozen police officers Monday when he picked up the endorsement of the Virginia chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, which is supporting McCain in the presidential race. Warner's campaign noted that Monday's event marked the first time in more than 20 years that the Virginia FOP has endorsed a Democratic candidate in a U.S. Senate race.
"We are looking at this [Senate race] as being completely different than the national presidential race," said Lt. Thomas E. Stiles of the Chesterfield County police, past president of the Virginia FOP.
He credited Warner with helping to fund pay raises for law enforcement officials when he was governor from 1998 to 2002. "We are looking for someone who can take care of Virginians," he said.
In making its endorsement, the Chamber of Commerce referred to Warner as a "champion for the people of Virginia and an invaluable leader on important business issues."
But there are risks in Warner's efforts to build a broad coalition that spans ideological lines. On Monday, Warner declined to take a firm position on whether he supports the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize work sites.
Warner did not offer a clear opinion when reporters asked about his stance on allowing police officers to collectively bargain.
"I want to bring both sides together," Warner said.
LOAD-DATE: September 9, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; As James S. Gilmore III (R), left, unveiled a TV ad, Mark R. Warner (D) picked up endorsements from two groups that usually support the GOP.
IMAGE
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 9, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
'The Original Mavericks,' or 'More of the Same'?
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A06
THE AD
The original mavericks. He fights pork-barrel spending. She stopped the "Bridge to Nowhere." He took on the drug industry. She took on Big Oil. He battled Republicans and reformed Washington. She battled Republicans and reformed Alaska. They'll make history. They'll change Washington. McCain. Palin. Real change.
ANALYSIS
John McCain is using this ad to try to reclaim the "maverick" label once routinely attached to his name, before he embraced the Republican right more tightly in seeking the presidential nomination. His running mate, Sarah Palin, can also claim to have taken on her state's Republican Party as Alaska governor, though it is conservative media outlets that most often call her a maverick.
The senator from Arizona has made a crusade of battling pork-barrel "earmarks," but the whopper here is the assertion that Palin opposed her state's notorious Bridge to Nowhere. She endorsed the remote project while running for governor in 2006, claimed to be an opponent only after Congress killed its funding the next year, and has used the $223 million provided for it for other state ventures. Far from being an opponent of earmarks, Palin hired lobbyists to try to capture more federal funding.
McCain can fairly be said to have taken on the drug industry by co-sponsoring a bill to allow imports of cheaper drugs from Canada. Palin presided over a tax on oil company profits and pushed the industry to develop Alaska's natural gas reserves.
To say that McCain "reformed Washington" is an overstatement. He has had limited success, such as on campaign finance legislation, but many of his other efforts, most notably on an attempt to revise immigration laws, have failed. And McCain has changed his position on such issues as President Bush's tax cuts, which he originally opposed but now wants to extend.
The commercial makes it clear that McCain, with the addition of a rookie governor, is no longer running as the candidate of experience. Instead, he is trying to steal the "change" mantra from his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, and appeal to swing voters who are disillusioned with the Republican Party.
THE AD
They call themselves mavericks. Whoa. Truth is, they're anything but. John McCain is hardly a maverick, when seven of his top campaign advisers are Washington lobbyists. He's no maverick when he votes with Bush 90 percent of the time. And Sarah Palin's no maverick, either. She was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it. Politicians lying about their records? You don't call that maverick. You call it more of the same.
ANALYSIS
This mocking response ad from Obama tries to tie the Republican ticket to old, conventional politics -- but also has the effect of bringing Obama down a notch, into a debate with McCain's running mate.
McCain's top campaign leadership is packed with former lobbyists, but that is not unusual in presidential races -- Obama's deputy campaign manager is a former lobbyist, and more than three dozen lobbyists have worked for his fundraising team. And McCain took on big lobbies with his successful push for campaign finance revision.
More damaging is the ad's citation of McCain's overwhelming legislative support for President Bush, raising questions as to just how independent he is from the man he is vying to succeed.
The senator from Illinois recycles a 2004 Bush attack line against Democratic nominee John F. Kerry, who had said he was for $87 billion in war funding before he was against it. The ad accurately charges that Palin, who is touting her opposition to the bridge project, originally supported it when she ran for Alaska governor.
Does that amount to politicians "lying" about their records? Palin's description of her role in the bridge funding is highly selective at best. An on-screen headline cites a critique of McCain's ad calling it a "naked lie," but that is from the liberal New Republic magazine. And while McCain may be exaggerating his maverick credentials, that is not evidence of lying.
The commercial's opening shot shows Obama with fellow senator and running mate Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the words "For the Change We Need." That encapsulates the ad's underlying purpose: not to let McCain hijack the change theme that has been at the core of Obama's candidacy.
LOAD-DATE: September 9, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 9, 2008 Tuesday
Suburban Edition
On Campaign Trail, Tax Issue Is Simple, and Complex
BYLINE: Michael D. Shear and Peter Slevin; Washington Post Staff Writers
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A03
DATELINE: LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo., Sept. 8
As the U.S. housing crisis deepens and job losses accelerate, Sen. John McCain is trying to distill the debate over the economy into a simple, and familiar, message over taxes.
"I'll keep taxes low and cut 'em where I can," the Republican presidential candidate vowed Monday afternoon at a rally in the swing state of Missouri. "My opponent will raise your taxes! My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate 'em."
McCain's approach is a familiar one for Republicans, who have for years promised to lower taxes and accused Democrats of wanting to raise them. "All you have got to do is appeal to the common sense of the voters. They get it," said Mark Salter, one of McCain's top aides. "Go out there and state your case. It's no more nuanced or complicated that that."
Mindful of the difficulty Democrats have had in countering a tough message on taxes, Sen. Barack Obama has charged that his Republican opponent is purposely steering away from offering the kind of detailed economic policies that voters are craving during hard times.
In Flint, Mich., where unemployment is twice the national average, Obama on Monday promised a cut to 95 percent of taxpayers. He said retirees earning less than $50,000 would pay no taxes on Social Security payments, and he urged Congress to pass a second stimulus package "so that people would have a little more money in their pockets."
Obama also talked about a $4,000 annual tuition tax credit for college, trade schools or retraining classes. He said that he would require employers to set up retirement investment accounts and that the federal government would make a one-time $500 starter contribution for each worker.
In a briefing for reporters on Monday, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe also described the economy as McCain's "huge Achilles' heel" and the central question in voters' minds. "On the economy, more and more so every day, people want a clear departure," from the policies of President Bush, Plouffe said.
But the advantage Obama has enjoyed for months on the economy appears to be fading as the Democratic candidate tries to make the more complicated argument to voters: Some taxes will go up, others will go down. Big corporations and the rich will pay more, but the middle class will pay less.
In a Washington Post-ABC News poll, Obama's edge on the economy has slipped to only five percentage points, a low for the campaign.
"He's a very smart guy and clever," McCain aide Salter said of Obama. "The way he describes things, it's always a little bit of this, a little bit of that. The fact is, he's proposing tax increases."
According to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, Obama and McCain are both proposing tax plans that would result in cuts for most families. All taxpayers would receive a cut under McCain's plan. Taxes for those who make less than $226,982 would go down under Obama's proposal and they would rise for those who make more than $603,403. Obama would give the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy.
When talking about the economy, Obama typically moves beyond taxes and jobs to wrap in his call for new energy sources and affordable health care, arguing that both are connected to people's pocketbooks. In Flint, for example, he suggested that unemployed young people could be hired to insulate homes against harsh winters, teaching them a trade and providing a service.
Obama always talks about his proposal to spend $150 billion in federal tax money in the next 10 years on renewable fuels. He argues that it will ease the dependence on foreign oil, help the environment and create millions of jobs. Similarly, he said federal investment in roads and rails will produce jobs and make the U.S. more competitive.
In his stump speech, McCain also regularly goes beyond taxes, talking about the need for a new energy policy that will create thousands of jobs in the U.S. by building nuclear power plants, shifting to a new generation of electric-powered cars and increasing off-shore drilling, a pledge that invariably leads to a chant of "Drill, baby, drill!" from crowds. McCain regularly draws "boos" when the Republican accuses Obama of wanting to raise taxes.
McCain's embrace of Republican purists on taxes is somewhat ironic, given his history of being viewed with suspicion by anti-tax activists who accused him of betraying their cause by voting against President Bush's tax cut proposals early in the administration.
McCain's refusal to pledge not to ever raise taxes and his efforts to reform the campaign finance system made an enemy out of anti-tax crusaders like Grover Norquist. But Norquist and others have now rallied to McCain's side, prompted in part by his new, tough rhetoric on their key issue.
As they clashed on taxes, McCain and Obama also continued their war of words over who would be best able to bring change to Washington.
McCain accused Obama of pandering to the "extreme left" during the Democratic primaries, saying that the Democratic nominee once said he would reduce spending on weapons systems and now says that he will spend more on them.
"Mr. Obama told the extreme left whatever they wanted to hear during the primary," McCain said at the Missouri rally. "Now he's trying to tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear."
The McCain campaign released a new television ad touting the Republican ticket as a pair of mavericks and highlighting, among other things, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's move to stop "the Bridge to Nowhere."
In Michigan, Obama stood in front of three gasoline-electric hybrid SUVs and renewed his criticism of Palin for her claim that she opposes congressional earmarks and rejected the Alaska bridge.
"When she was mayor, she hired a Washington lobbyist to get earmarks, pork-barrel spending. All the things John McCain says are bad, she lobbied to get. And got a whole lot of it," Obama said. He added that she favored the bridge "until everybody started raising a fuss about it," and "suddenly, she was against it."
"I mean, you cant just make stuff up," Obama said. "You can't just reinvent yourself. The American people aren't stupid."
LOAD-DATE: September 9, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; In Lee's Summit, Mo., John McCain said his opponent would raise taxes.
IMAGE; By Rebecca Cook -- Reuters; In Flint, Mich., Barack Obama said 95 percent of U.S. taxpayers would foot a smaller bill with him in the White House.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 8, 2008 Monday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Government takes over mortgage giants
By Alan Zibel and Martin Crutsinger
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON
The Bush administration seized control Sunday of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, aiming to stabilize the housing market turmoil that is threatening financial markets and the overall economy.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is betting that providing fresh capital to the two firms will eventually lead to lower mortgage rates, spur homebuying demand and slow the plunge in home prices that has ravaged many areas of the country.
The huge potential liabilities facing each company, as a result of soaring mortgage defaults, could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, but Paulson stressed that the financial impacts if the two companies had been allowed to fail would be far more serious.
"A failure would affect the ability of Americans to get home loans, auto loans and other consumer credit and business finance," Paulson said.
M ore important, he added, "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and so interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would cause great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe. "
The companies, which together own or guarantee about $5 trillion in home loans, about half the nation's total, have lost $14 billion in the last year and are likely to pile up billions more in losses until the housing market begins to recover.
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama issued a statement agreeing that some form of intervention was necessary, and promised, "I will be reviewing the details of the Treasury plan and monitoring its impact to determine whether it achieves the key benchmarks I believe are necessary to address this crisis."
On Saturday, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said Fannie and Freddie "have gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers. The McCain-Palin administration will make them smaller and smarter and more effective for homeowners who need help."
Both companies were placed into a government conservatorship that will be run by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the new agency created by Congress this summer to regulate Fannie and Freddie.
The executives and board of directors of both institutions are being replaced. Herb Allison, a former vice chairman of Merrill Lynch, was selected to head Fannie Mae, and David Moffett, a former vice chairman of U.S. Bancorp , was picked to head Freddie Mac.
Paulson was careful not to blame Daniel Mudd, the outgoing CEO of Fannie Mae, or Richard Syron, Freddie Mac's departing CEO, for the companies' current problems. While both men are being removed as the top executives, they have been asked to remain for an unspecified period to help with the transition.
The Treasury Department said it will immediately be issued $1 billion in senior preferred stock, paying 10 percent interest, from each company, but eventually could be required to put up as much as $100 billion for each over time if the money is needed to keep the companies afloat as losses mount. The government also will receive warrants representing ownership stakes of 79.9 percent in each.
Officials defended this approach by saying it underscores the importance of the trillions in mortgage debt that each company either holds or guarantees and the need to make sure that investors in this country and overseas keep buying this debt.
The impact on existing common and preferred shares, which have slumped in value in the last year, will depend on how investors react to Paulson's assertion that they must absorb the cost of further losses first. Under the plan, dividends on both common and preferred stock would be eliminated, saving about $2 billion a year.
After the Treasury Department's announcement, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Fannie and Freddie's preserved stock to junk-bond status but reaffirmed the U.S. government's triple-A rating.
Under government control, the companies will be allowed to expand their support for the mortgage market over the next year by boosting the amount of mortgage securities they hold on their books from a combined $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion.
Starting in 2010, though, they are required to drop their holdings by 10 percent annually until they reach a combined $500 billion.
Paulson said that it would be up to Congress and the next president to figure out the two companies' ultimate structure and the conflicting goals they operated under - maximizing returns for shareholders while also being required to encourage home buying for low- and moderate-income Americans.
Paulson and James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, stressed that their actions were designed to strengthen the role of the two mortgage giants in supporting the nation's housing market. Both companies do that by buying mortgage loans from banks and packaging those loans into securities that they either hold or sell to U.S. and foreign investors.
LOAD-DATE: September 8, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 8, 2008 Monday
Met 2 Edition
For the Republican Base, Palin Pick Is Energizing
BYLINE: Alec MacGillis; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Bill and Sandra Goode were so worried that John McCain might pick a running mate who favored abortion rights that Bill called McCain's presidential campaign headquarters to warn against it. They prayed. And when the Republican senator picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whom they had barely heard of but knew to be staunchly antiabortion, Sandra Goode said, "we knew our prayers had been answered."
The Goodes would have voted for McCain no matter what, but Palin lifted them to a new level of motivation. They called the volunteer McCain representative in their town of Surry, Va., offering any help they could.
"She's a real catalyst," said Bill Goode, 63, an electrician. "Sarah is the epitome of pro-life. You can tell how effective she is by the reaction she got. If she was someone who wasn't viewed as a threat to the abortionists, there wouldn't have been a response equivalent to this."
Palin's debut has invigorated the Republican base here in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, a battleground area in a top swing state, and one where GOP turnout depends heavily on evangelical Christians such as the Goodes, along with the many military families clustered around the Norfolk and Portsmouth bases.
The reaction has been remarkably instantaneous, with socially conservative voters who had barely heard of Palin electrified by the few facts they quickly learned: her longtime membership in the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal denomination; her large family; her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest; her decision to carry to term her fifth child after learning he has Down syndrome; and her belief in teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools.
But the question facing Republicans here is whether their organization can match, and fully capitalize on, the enthusiasm provided by Palin with just two months left until Election Day. As Obama targets Virginia and its 13 electoral votes -- President Bush won the state with 54 percent of the vote in 2004 -- he has built a formidable organization, with 41 offices to McCain's nine, dozens more paid staff members, and far more time spent manning phone banks and going door to door.
GOP activists report with relief that socially conservative voters who might have stayed home on Election Day say they will turn out now, while others say they will campaign more actively for the ticket. Among those coming out of the woodwork, activists say, are some who have not been active before, such as parents of special-needs children who feel a bond with Palin. The reaction was slower for less-religious Republicans, including ones with military backgrounds who wondered about Palin's qualifications, but after her tough convention speech, many of them are also energized.
"Hearing her pro-life stance, her conservative values, her family orientation -- it has really resonated with the proletariat and caused people to say: 'Hey, I'm going to get involved here. This is someone I can relate with; this is someone that can win,' " said David Willis, an electrical engineer and GOP activist in Smithfield. "I don't want to imply the party's been limping this whole time, but with Sarah, McCain really emboldened it."
Interviews with Republican activists in the Hampton Roads area confirmed that the party is lagging in the organizational department, though most expressed confidence that, with the spark of Palin's debut, they have time to catch up. The deficit lies partly in the parties' differing approaches: Republicans generally invest less in get-out-the-vote efforts than Democrats, because they say they know who their base voters are and they know that those voters need less encouragement.
But this year the contrast is particularly sharp. Unlike Bush's 2004 campaign, which focused heavily on turnout operations, McCain has devoted most of his resources to ads, while Obama has emphasized organization as perhaps no Democrat before him.
Obama has made big gains in registering new Virginia voters, with 49,000 additions in August, 36 percent more than signed up in July. The campaign says it held 1,000 house parties in Virginia to watch Obama's convention speech, with many of the 13,000 attending also canvassing over the Labor Day weekend.
Because Virginia has been so reliably Republican in presidential elections for decades, Republicans here -- unlike in perennial swing states such as Ohio -- are unaccustomed to having to exert all that much effort. And until Palin burst on the scene, Republicans here said there just was not a lot of the energy needed to fuel a grass-roots operation, because of Bush's decline in popularity, lingering ambivalence about McCain and demoralization from recent GOP losses in the state.
"Everything was pretty lackluster," said Earl Hall, the volunteer representative for Surry, who is far more excited now that Palin's in the picture: "She's right good-looking -- that's all I need to know."
In Isle of Wight County, a GOP stronghold just west of Portsmouth and home to the ham capital of Smithfield -- Bush won 63 percent of the vote there in 2004 -- the county party had gone defunct until last month, when several previous members and several new arrivals decided that, with the election coming up, they ought to resurrect it.
They placed an ad in the paper and called 100 names on the old membership list. A dozen people expressed interest, and they now meet every other week. On Thursday, they organized a house party to watch McCain's speech. Thirteen people showed up to watch and dine on snacks with American-flag paper plates and napkins. Their reaction to McCain's speech was muted, with some of the loudest applause coming when he mentioned Palin.
They also plan to set up a table at the county fair, but otherwise their outreach has been limited -- a few sessions of phone-calling and a few door-to-door canvasses by a couple of core members, during which they distributed generic GOP literature because they have not yet received any McCain brochures. They have had trouble getting bumper stickers and have run out of lawn signs. They still need to assign captains for most of the county's dozen precincts, and will not expect anything from those volunteers except manning the polls on Election Day -- unlike the Obama campaign, which expects precinct captains to spend weeks finding ways to reach out to their neighbors.
John Brannis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and military contractor employee who volunteered for the Bush campaign in the county in 2004, was not concerned, saying that calling voters or knocking on their door was not worth the effort -- Republicans had done fine in 2004 despite doing little of that. It is more effective, he said, to chat with people on his daily rounds, like the older woman who asked him to pump her gas the other day.
"People here know that if you want to know about Republican Party, talk to J.B. Brannis," he said. "It needs to be about personal relationships."
Cristina Morris, who moved to Isle of Wight last year from Fairfax County with her husband, an officer with the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps, was surprised that she has wound up as the chairwoman of the resurrected county party. "We didn't think we'd be running it, but someone has to do it," she said.
The picture is similar around the area. In Surry, Hall has not gone door to door yet, saying that "it's too expensive driving around." "If people can't get the information they need now with all the media floating around, then they've got a problem," he said. In Suffolk, Steve Trent, a salesman leading the volunteer effort, is holding off on canvassing until he has literature for all the GOP candidates on the ticket. But, he said, Palin's instant celebrity will overcome any delays.
"What woman do you know who could shoot a moose, field-dress it and serve it?" he said. "This has really energized the conservative side of the house."
Gail Gitcho, a McCain spokeswoman in Virginia, said that the campaign is satisfied with its progress and that Palin's selection was already having palpable effects, most visibly in an increase in the number of women volunteers turning out to make phone calls at the campaign's offices. "We have a lot more work to do but we're feeling very good about Virginia," she said.
How much evangelical Christian support McCain would have drawn without Palin is open to debate. It was in Virginia Beach, home to Pat Robertson's Regent University, that he gave his 2000 speech labeling Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance." But he later reconciled with them and impressed evangelical Christians with his performance at a forum at the Saddleback mega-church in California last month.
Palin's appeal among evangelical Christians may not be universal. Some may be put off by her overt religious references, as when she called the war in Iraq a "task that is from God" at an Alaska church and asked members of the congregation to pray for the natural gas pipeline she is trying to get built. Many younger evangelicals have elevated issues such as global warming, which Palin does not think is necessarily caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
But Charles W. Dunn, dean of the government school at Regent University, said that her stances on "family values" issues "trump the others" and that evangelical Christians have been "transformed into worker bees" as a result of her selection. "Early returns suggest an all-out embrace. She has created a buzz like I've never seen before," he said. "These folks felt hopeless, and all of a sudden they've been given hope overnight and beyond measure."
Peyton White, a McCain activist in Newport News, concurred, saying that she would feel much more comfortable now in approaching other members of her church to help campaign, because they identify with Palin and see her as paving the way for others like them. "People see her as one of them," she said. "There's a feeling that this is something all of us could be transformed into, because she's done it now."
LOAD-DATE: September 8, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Alex Wong -- Getty Images; On Feb. 12 in Alexandria, John McCain celebrated his victory in Virginia's Republican primary. Turnout among conservatives in Hampton Roads could be crucial in the swing state in November.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
Treasury takes over Fannie, Freddie;
Massive bailout first step to restructuring
BYLINE: By Patrice Hill, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Treasury Department on Sunday seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in an effort to stabilize the mortgage and global finance markets, opening the door for what likely is to be a major restructuring and downsizing of the mortgage giants in the next administration.
While the massive and unprecedented takeover appears set to become the largest financial bailout in history, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said his immediate goal simply is to preserve the companies largely in their current form as quasi-governmental agencies and keep them solvent until Congress and the new president can decide how to change them in the long term.
"The new Congress and the next administration must decide what role government in general, and these entities in particular, should play in the housing market," he said. "There is a consensus today that these enterprises pose a systemic risk and they cannot continue in their current form ... Only Congress can address the inherent conflict of attempting to serve both shareholders and a public mission."
For now, he said the Treasury's plan to infuse up to $200 billion of cash into the mortgage giants through a complicated series of moves designed to protect the interests of taxpayers was necessary to prevent a potential collapse in the housing and finance markets from pulling down the rest of the economy.
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and so interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them
would cause great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe," Mr. Paulson said.
A breakdown at Fannie or Freddie would have had broad ramifications for the economy, he said, not only making home loans scarce but making auto and other consumer loans harder to get. He said it also would have diminished household wealth and savings by putting further pressure on home prices. Homes represent the biggest investment of most Americans.
Under the financing scheme set in motion Sunday, the Treasury and the Federal Housing Finance Agency will take over Fannie and Freddie under a so-called conservatorship, replacing their chief executives and eliminating their stock dividends.
The Treasury will purchase up to $100 billion of senior preferred stock in each company as needed to maintain a positive net worth. It also will provide short-term funding to Fannie, Freddie and 12 federal home-loan banks, and purchase $5 billion of their guaranteed mortgage bonds by the end of this month.
The government appointed new management at the agencies: Herbert Allison, former chief executive of pension fund TIAA-CREF, will take over as Fannie's new CEO, while David Moffett, who used to serve as vice chairman of U.S. Bancorp, will head Freddie. The current CEOs of Fannie and Freddie, Daniel Mudd and Richard Syron, respectively, will serve as consultants in a transition period.
Mr. Paulson insisted that, despite the $200 billion of funds the Treasury is prepared to give Fannie and Freddie under the plan, taxpayers need not pay a price if the plan proves effective and enables the housing and mortgage markets to recover. In that case, he said, Treasury might make a profit from its investments.
James Lockhart, the housing finance agency's director, said Sunday's action was necessary because the companies were having trouble raising money on their own and could not "continue to operate safely and soundly and fulfill their critical public mission without significant action." Market confidence in the companies will be tested as they roll over an estimated $225 billion in debt before the end of the month.
One area that will be cut back immediately is lobbying and other political activities, which Mr. Lockhart said must cease. Officials at Fannie and Freddie, which are major employers in the Washington area, declined to comment. Company employees are scheduled to meet with the new executives Monday morning.
The temporary takeover will last until the end of next year, giving the next administration and Congress time to decide whether to continue it and what to do with the agencies in the long term.
The Treasury took a step toward long-term restructuring and downsizing of the companies by requiring them, as a condition of receiving Treasury's stock investment, to gradually pare down huge portfolios of mortgage loans they have purchased as part of their massive money-making operations in recent years.
Fannie and Freddie would be allowed to increase their portfolios until the end of next year from about $750 billion apiece today to no more than $850 billion. But after that, they would be required to run down the portfolios by 10 percent a year for about a decade until they reach $250 billion apiece.
The planned downsizing of the companies appears in sync with the policies of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, who has said he wants the agencies to be smaller and more effective.
"Senator McCain thinks that this is a step in the right direction, and we need to protect the taxpayers, and we need to never allow this to happen again," McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition."
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has been supportive of the takeover plan, but has not indicated whether he would cut back the agencies or enhance their roles in the housing market.
"Once we ride out the current crisis, the plan must move toward clarifying the true public and private status of our housing policies," he said Sunday, suggesting that the government's role shouldn't only be to provide a bailout. "In our market system, investors must not be allowed to believe that they can invest in a 'heads they win, tails they don't lose' situation."
The Treasury's cash infusions follow a complicated playbook. It immediately will take a $1 billion equity stake in each company that could grow to be as large as $100 billion each and which would be senior to both existing preferred and common shares.
The senior preferred stock obtained by the Treasury will carry warrants that will give the government an ownership stake of 79.9 percent and other benefits.
Treasury also set up a program under which it would buy mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to pump fresh funds into the mortgage market through the end of next year.
The financing scheme does not eliminate existing common and preferred stock, but requires existing shareholders to absorb any losses ahead of the government. Over time, if Fannie and Freddie emerge from restructuring healthy and profitable again, stockholders may benefit.
Financial analysts applauded the move, but stock investors were expected to react badly to their much-diminished prospects when markets reopen Monday.
"The nationalization of Fannie and Freddie hits some right notes," said Rob Cox, analyst at BreakingViews.com. "The CEOs are ousted, equity and preferred holders are hosed and the businesses run off. This should help stabilize U.S. housing. But it leaves the inevitable task of dismantling the [government sponsored enterprises] to a future administration."
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said the cash infusion was necessary, but should be followed up with an overhaul of the agencies next year. "The Treasury plan allows time to build widespread consensus for important reforms to these institutions, while ensuring, meanwhile, market stability and support for the economic recovery," he said.
LOAD-DATE: September 8, 2008
GRAPHIC: RESCUE: Henry M. Paulson Jr. says the next president and Congress must decide the mortgage giants' fate. [Photo by Getty Images]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 7, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
Mortgage takeover may cost $25 billion;
U.S. acts to stabilize Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac in credit crisis
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-1
The Bush administration yesterday prepared to take over the troubled housing finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after concluding the companies don't have enough capital to continue to play their crucial role funding home mortgages.
A government bailout could cost taxpayers around $25 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Moreover, regulators are trying to prevent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's problems from triggering a new wave of failures among banks.
Under the plan, engineered by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., the government would place the two companies under "conservatorship," a legal status akin to Chapter 11 bankruptcy, where assets are preserved, not sold off, and the company is reorganized rather than closed. Their boards and chief executives would be fired and a government agency, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, would appoint new chief executives.
The action, which would be one of the most sweeping government interventions in private financial markets in decades, is planned for today, according to several sources.
The epic decision highlights the size of the threats facing the housing market and the economy. On Friday, Nevada regulators shut down Silver State Bank, the 11th failure this year of a federally insured bank. And earlier this year, the government orchestrated the takeover of investment bank Bear Stearns by JP Morgan Chase.
Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee more than $5 trillion of U.S. home morgtgages or about half the total outstanding, Mortgage-backed securities that they manufacture have been sold by thousands of banks and investors around the world.
When Paulson reveals the administration's plans, he will likely be walking a knife edge between two seemingly irreconcilable views..
Free market analysts say that the government-chartered, but shareholder-owned companies pose a threat to Washington's own solvency and must be thrown into a bankruptcy-like receivership, run by the government until the current financial crisis eases and then broken up or sold off.
In no case, say advocates of this view, should Treasury pump in taxpayer money.
But congressional Democrats and major financial market players argue that the government should spare no expense in rescuing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, arguing that the two mortgage giants must be healthy not only for Americans to buy houses, but for the economy to regain its footing.
This faction argues that Washington should pump the two institutions up with tens of billions of dollars in taxpayers' funds.
Paulson met with Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd and Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron yesterday to tell them of the decision and remove the executives from their jobs, according to two people briefed on the discussions.
Paulson also briefed congressional leaders and presidential candidates John McCain yesterday and Barack Obama on Friday night. Obama said yesterday that he approves of the government action, if it does not bail out the companies' shareholders and executives and is good for the economy. Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said a McCain administration would make the companies smaller and more effective.
In Albuquerque, N.M., McCain said: "We need to keep people in their homes, but we can't allow this to turn into a bailout of Wall Street speculators."
LOAD-DATE: September 11, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 7, 2008 Sunday
Final Edition
Palin stirs debate on bias, social change
BYLINE: OLYMPIA MEOLA; Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SECTION: AREA/STATE; Pg. A-1
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's rise might show that for women, there's still a ways to go.
In the shadow of her historic nomination as the second woman named to a major-party ticket, mixed reactions swirl. The topic is dish for everyone from 20-somethings in wine bars to stay-at-home mommy bloggers who are talking about politics instead of potty-training tips.
The conversations go far beyond Palin's impact on the presidential race, which in Virginia is not yet clear eight weeks before Election Day.
Politically tinged reactions to Palin reflect something of a role reversal. Some liberal moms question the repercussions of this mother of five taking on such a demanding role, while socially conservative moms defend her ability to have it all and do it well.
But even the most ideologically disparate women agree that whether a parent can attend to family and also have a role on the world stage shouldn't be an issue for a woman if it isn't for a man.
"I think it's extremely unfair that they even bring it up. They never bring that sort of thing up with a man," said Vicki Garcia, a stay-at-home mother of three in New Kent County who runs a business out of her home with her husband.
Garcia sees Palin, 44, as a strong woman and role model for young girls, and she thinks Palin's husband, Todd, seems perfectly capable of keeping the family's domestic life moving.
"I'm a home-school, conservative mother. You maybe wouldn't hear that [support for Palin] from most home-school moms who stay home with their kids, but it's balance," she said. "It's almost an insult to [Todd Palin] to act like he can't help manage things."
Mary M. Middleton, an independent voter from Henrico County, raised four children while teaching college. She's thrilled with Palin as a vice presidential candidate and thinks the scrutiny Palin is facing about how she would fare as a mother if elected is "horrendous and outrageous."
Middleton said it's an insult to fathers such as her husband, and to Sens. Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., the dads on the Democratic ticket who have not been dragged into the same debate about making it all work.
* * *
Sandy Fowler-Jones, a public-relations director and Richmond resident, said questions about the mother's balancing act are still part of breaking the glass ceiling.
"It wasn't that long ago women were discriminated against in the workplace when they got pregnant," she said. "We're still making progress in that arena."
Fowler-Jones said she's most interested in whether Palin has the experience and leadership skills to be the second-in-command. "The fact that she's a mother is a moot point," she said.
Margaret A. Dessypris Thomas is considering starting a family, and the balance between Margaret-the-career-woman and Margaret-the-mom is high on her mind.
The Henrico resident, who considers herself an independent, doesn't want to put aside the education she's earned to stay at home. She disagrees with Palin on social issues but also wonders how well Palin would manage family life and her job as vice president.
"The fact that she has five children, I wonder what kind of care she provides for them, what kind of quality of life," she said. "She, to me, hasn't done a good job teaching [her 17-year-old daughter Bristol] about abstinence - or about birth control - because she's pregnant."
Palin could probably cover extra help at home with her vice-presidential paycheck, but to Dessypris Thomas, it's a matter of priorities.
"You can't do it all. You do need help, you do need support," she said. "So are her children really going to know their mom on a personal level, or are they going to watch her on the TV all the time?"
Many women agree that there is a double standard. And the debate has become so divisive that some women interviewed for this story indicated they had cautiously held back certain thoughts to seem as inoffensive as possible.
Blogs have become sounding boards on the subject, with mothers from Atlanta to Chicago prefacing posts with "I usually don't write about politics but ..."
A mother blogging in Atlanta said she worries that if Sen. John McCain wins and Palin makes it look easy to work a full-time job, then "Palin's facade could be the ultimate disservice to working moms and a good excuse for her not-so-progressive boss to keep us right where we are today."
In April, according to a report in the Anchorage Daily News, Palin gave an address at an energy conference in Texas while having contractions. She returned to work three days after her youngest son, Trig, was born.
Becky Suder, a Richmond mother who works part time and is raising two children with her husband, thinks the Democratic and Republican parties are using parts of Palin's family story for their own benefit. She asks whether it is really Palin's ability to do it all that causes concern, or whether some just disagree with Palin's conservative values.
"That to me is amazing - that's the point [either side is] going to take so they can further their party," said Suder, who blogs about parenting for inRich.com.
Suder likes the prospect of a woman as vice president, but she said "it's almost demeaning" to vote for a woman for the sake of it. One Times-Dispatch reader called that prospect "pander gate."
* * *
In picking Palin, who opposes abortion and supports gun rights, analysts say McCain hoped to energize the Republican base while potentially picking up some of the disaffected supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was bested by Obama in the Democratic primary campaign.
Some Democrats have criticized McCain for what they considered his pandering to Clinton's 18 million supporters in the primaries. Palin quickly reached out to Clinton's voters.
When McCain introduced his running mate Aug. 29 in Dayton, Ohio, Palin said: "It was rightly noted in Denver [at the Democratic convention] that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. But it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all."
So far, polls and interviews with Clinton supporters indicate that Palin's addition to the GOP ticket could attract a nominal portion of the Clinton backers.
Obama's support among Clinton backers increased after the Democratic convention, a week in which the party emphasized unity. At the convention, Clinton moved for Obama to be nominated by acclamation.
The percentage of former Clinton supporters who say they will vote for Obama jumped to 81 percent after the convention from 70 percent before it, according to a Sept. 2 Gallup Poll of 1,835 registered voters nationwide. The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
Some party loyalists, like Hazel Rigby, don't want just any woman. They want Hillary.
Rigby, a retired veteran Alexandria public schools teacher who hopes to see a woman president before she dies, is so supportive of Clinton that she wants it chiseled into her tombstone.
Rigby, who attended the Democratic convention, says the addition of Palin to the Republican ticket doesn't woo her. It offends her.
"We're not that stupid," she said. "My feeling is most women who would be inclined to vote for a woman, or Hillary especially, would not be attracted to that ticket at all."
Palin's largely conservative views are opposite of everything Clinton's supporters fought for, Rigby said. She said Palin supports teaching creationism alongside evolution in schools and thinks abortion should be illegal, except to save the mother's life. And Rigby said she's seen footage of Palin, a hunter who heads the Alaska National Guard, "at least three or four times pointing a gun right at the [TV] screen."
"I will not support her," she said. "I can't find one issue she and I can agree on other than taking care of our own children."
Terry Holland, a Clinton supporter in Williamsburg, said McCain's selection of Palin inspired her to volunteer for Obama's campaign. She said she was "incensed and insulted" that McCain thought he could replace her vote for one woman with a vote for another.
"That was the straw that broke the camel's back," she said.
Middleton, the mother and college professor, said McCain's choice of Palin was not pandering but an example of the maverick in McCain. Selecting someone like former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, who ran for the GOP's presidential nomination, would have been more of a pander to the Republican base, she said.
The Palin pick "was a real swing for the fences, I thought," she said.
* * *
Political scientists in Virginia say it's too soon to know what kind of effect Palin will have on the fight for the state's 13 electoral votes. Palin was little known to much of the country a little more than a week ago.
Independent voters are one group to watch in Virginia for potential Republican gains, along with female evangelical voters, said Quentin Kidd, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University. Virginia is known nationally to be among 10 states where evangelical voters make a difference in elections, he said.
Until the selection of Palin, pundits had suggested that newly registered and previously disengaged young voters and African-American voters could be a major factor this November, and polls show those group are largely left-leaning. But an energized conservative base and potential pickups among independents could help McCain.
Kidd said there is a chance, however, that Palin could widen the typical gender gap, in which more men favor Republicans and more women back Democrats. She could, for example, drive away some independent female voters who support abortion rights.
Fowler-Jones said the Palin nomination shows that women are not a monolithic group.
"We are extremely diverse and we respond to different things. She does seem to resonate with a certain group of women," she said.
Once the country recovers from the initial shock of Palin's rise from virtual unknown to vice-presidential nominee, voters will figure out how she represents issues that are important to them, she said.
"People who might be in the middle may be waiting to hear [the Oct. 2 vice presidential] debate so that they can get a better feel for who she is."
In Virginia's Feb. 12 Democratic presidential primary, 60 percent of female voters supported Obama and 39 percent backed Clinton. Of independents who voted in that primary, 30 percent backed Clinton and 69 percent backed Obama, according to exit polls reported by CNN.com.
* * *
Susan Foster, a Chesterfield County mother of four, including twin daughters with Down syndrome, is attracted to Palin partly because she wants an advocate in Washington for people with disabilities. The Palins' infant, Trig, has Down syndrome.
Foster thinks Palin would likely get more help for her children in Washington than in Alaska.
And she noted that Todd Palin, a commercial fisherman who also works as a production operator in the oil fields, seems to help.
"Families who live public lives such as actors and politicians have access to many more resources and much more professional help than other families," she said. "There are many families in America who have both parents working full time without these options."
Kathleen Levenston, a working mom in the Richmond area, doesn't identify with either political party. She's dismayed that the question of how well Palin could perform as a mom and a vice president even comes up.
"I am not concerned about Palin's family constellation," she said.
"I have plenty of concerns about the Republican platform, but I do not have an opinion about whether or not Mrs. Palin is doing a good job as a mother.
"She is a professional, and it is up to her to figure out a way to meet her responsibilities."
* * *
Trailblazers
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is only the second woman to appear on a major-party ticket. Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York was Democrat Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984.
Some women who have sought presidential nominations:
1964: Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, R-Maine
1972: Rep. Shirley Chisholm, D-N.Y.
1972: Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawaii
1976: Democrat Ellen McCormack, a New York housewife and opponent of abortion
2008: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
Note: Several women raised funds to run for president but dropped out before the primaries. They include Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., in 1988, Republican Elizabeth Dole in 2000 and Democrat Carol Moseley-Braun in 2004.
Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or omeola@timesdispatch.com
Staff writer Jim Nolan contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 11, 2008
NOTES: RT-D FIRST CAMPAIGN 2008
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Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times - Dispatch (Virginia)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
Palin stirs debate on bias, social change
BYLINE: Olympia Meola, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Sep. 7--Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's rise might show that for women, there's still a ways to go.
In the shadow of her historic nomination as the second woman named to a major-party ticket, mixed reactions swirl. The topic is dish for everyone from 20-somethings in wine bars to stay-at-home mommy bloggers who are talking about politics instead of potty-training tips.
The conversations go far beyond Palin's impact on the presidential race, which in Virginia is not yet clear eight weeks before Election Day.
Politically tinged reactions to Palin reflect something of a role reversal. Some liberal moms question the repercussions of this mother of five taking on such a demanding role, while socially conservative moms defend her ability to have it all and do it well.
But even the most ideologically disparate women agree that whether a parent can attend to family and also have a role on the world stage shouldn't be an issue for a woman if it isn't for a man.
"I think it's extremely unfair that they even bring it up. They never bring that sort of thing up with a man," said Vicki Garcia, a stay-at-home mother of three in New Kent County who runs a business out of her home with her husband.
Garcia sees Palin, 44, as a strong woman and role model for young girls, and she thinks Palin's husband, Todd, seems perfectly capable of keeping the family's domestic life moving.
"I'm a home-school, conservative mother. You maybe wouldn't hear that [support for Palin] from most home-school moms who stay home with their kids, but it's balance," she said. "It's almost an insult to [Todd Palin] to act like he can't help manage things."
Mary M. Middleton, an independent voter from Henrico County, raised four children while teaching college. She's thrilled with Palin as a vice presidential candidate and thinks the scrutiny Palin is facing about how she would fare as a mother if elected is "horrendous and outrageous."
Middleton said it's an insult to fathers such as her husband, and to Sens. Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., the dads on the Democratic ticket who have not been dragged into the same debate about making it all work.
Sandy Fowler-Jones, a public-relations director and Richmond resident, said questions about the mother's balancing act are still part of breaking the glass ceiling.
"It wasn't that long ago women were discriminated against in the workplace when they got pregnant," she said. "We're still making progress in that arena."
Fowler-Jones said she's most interested in whether Palin has the experience and leadership skills to be the second-in-command. "The fact that she's a mother is a moot point," she said.
Margaret A. Dessypris Thomas is considering starting a family, and the balance between Margaret-the-career-woman and Margaret-the-mom is high on her mind.
The Henrico resident, who considers herself an independent, doesn't want to put aside the education she's earned to stay at home. She disagrees with Palin on social issues but also wonders how well Palin would manage family life and her job as vice president.
"The fact that she has five children, I wonder what kind of care she provides for them, what kind of quality of life," she said. "She, to me, hasn't done a good job teaching [her 17-year-old daughter Bristol] about abstinence -- or about birth control -- because she's pregnant."
Palin could probably cover extra help at home with her vice-presidential paycheck, but to Dessypris Thomas, it's a matter of priorities.
"You can't do it all. You do need help, you do need support," she said. "So are her children really going to know their mom on a personal level, or are they going to watch her on the TV all the time?"
Many women agree that there is a double standard. And the debate has become so divisive that some women interviewed for this story indicated they had cautiously held back certain thoughts to seem as inoffensive as possible.
Blogs have become sounding boards on the subject, with mothers from Atlanta to Chicago prefacing posts with "I usually don't write about politics but . . . "
A mother blogging in Atlanta said she worries that if Sen. John McCain wins and Palin makes it look easy to work a full-time job, then "Palin's facade could be the ultimate disservice to working moms and a good excuse for her not-so-progressive boss to keep us right where we are today."
In April, according to a report in the Anchorage Daily News, Palin gave an address at an energy conference in Texas while having contractions. She returned to work three days after her youngest son, Trig, was born.
Becky Suder, a Richmond mother who works part time and is raising two children with her husband, thinks the Democratic and Republican parties are using parts of Palin's family story for their own benefit. She asks whether it is really Palin's ability to do it all that causes concern, or whether some just disagree with Palin's conservative values.
"That to me is amazing -- that's the point [either side is] going to take so they can further their party," said Suder, who blogs about parenting for inRich.com.
Suder likes the prospect of a woman as vice president, but she said "it's almost demeaning" to vote for a woman for the sake of it. One Times-Dispatch reader called that prospect "pander gate."
In picking Palin, who opposes abortion and supports gun rights, analysts say McCain hoped to energize the Republican base while potentially picking up some of the disaffected supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was bested by Obama in the Democratic primary campaign.
Some Democrats have criticized McCain for what they considered his pandering to Clinton's 18 million supporters in the primaries. Palin quickly reached out to Clinton's voters.
When McCain introduced his running mate Aug. 29 in Dayton, Ohio, Palin said: "It was rightly noted in Denver [at the Democratic convention] that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. But it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all."
So far, polls and interviews with Clinton supporters indicate that Palin's addition to the GOP ticket could attract a nominal portion of the Clinton backers.
Obama's support among Clinton backers increased after the Democratic convention, a week in which the party emphasized unity. At the convention, Clinton moved for Obama to be nominated by acclamation.
The percentage of former Clinton supporters who say they will vote for Obama jumped to 81 percent after the convention from 70 percent before it, according to a Sept. 2 Gallup Poll of 1,835 registered voters nationwide. The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
Some party loyalists, like Hazel Rigby, don't want just any woman. They want Hillary.
Rigby, a retired veteran Alexandria public schools teacher who hopes to see a woman president before she dies, is so supportive of Clinton that she wants it chiseled into her tombstone.
Rigby, who attended the Democratic convention, says the addition of Palin to the Republican ticket doesn't woo her. It offends her.
"We're not that stupid," she said. "My feeling is most women who would be inclined to vote for a woman, or Hillary especially, would not be attracted to that ticket at all."
Palin's largely conservative views are opposite of everything Clinton's supporters fought for, Rigby said. She said Palin supports teaching creationism alongside evolution in schools and thinks abortion should be illegal, except to save the mother's life. And Rigby said she's seen footage of Palin, a hunter who heads the Alaska National Guard, "at least three or four times pointing a gun right at the [TV] screen."
"I will not support her," she said. "I can't find one issue she and I can agree on other than taking care of our own children."
Terry Holland, a Clinton supporter in Williamsburg, said McCain's selection of Palin inspired her to volunteer for Obama's campaign. She said she was "incensed and insulted" that McCain thought he could replace her vote for one woman with a vote for another.
"That was the straw that broke the camel's back," she said.
Middleton, the mother and college professor, said McCain's choice of Palin was not pandering but an example of the maverick in McCain. Selecting someone like former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, who ran for the GOP's presidential nomination, would have been more of a pander to the Republican base, she said.
The Palin pick "was a real swing for the fences, I thought," she said.
Political scientists in Virginia say it's too soon to know what kind of effect Palin will have on the fight for the state's 13 electoral votes. Palin was little known to much of the country a little more than a week ago.
Independent voters are one group to watch in Virginia for potential Republican gains, along with female evangelical voters, said Quentin Kidd, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University. Virginia is known nationally to be among 10 states where evangelical voters make a difference in elections, he said.
Until the selection of Palin, pundits had suggested that newly registered and previously disengaged young voters and African-American voters could be a major factor this November, and polls show those group are largely left-leaning. But an energized conservative base and potential pickups among independents could help McCain.
Kidd said there is a chance, however, that Palin could widen the typical gender gap, in which more men favor Republicans and more women back Democrats. She could, for example, drive away some independent female voters who support abortion rights.
Fowler-Jones said the Palin nomination shows that women are not a monolithic group.
"We are extremely diverse and we respond to different things. She does seem to resonate with a certain group of women," she said.
Once the country recovers from the initial shock of Palin's rise from virtual unknown to vice-presidential nominee, voters will figure out how she represents issues that are important to them, she said.
"People who might be in the middle may be waiting to hear [the Oct. 2 vice presidential] debate so that they can get a better feel for who she is."
In Virginia's Feb. 12 Democratic presidential primary, 60 percent of female voters supported Obama and 39 percent backed Clinton. Of independents who voted in that primary, 30 percent backed Clinton and 69 percent backed Obama, according to exit polls reported by CNN.com.
Susan Foster, a Chesterfield County mother of four, including twin daughters with Down syndrome, is attracted to Palin partly because she wants an advocate in Washington for people with disabilities. The Palins' infant, Trig, has Down syndrome.
Foster thinks Palin would likely get more help for her children in Washington than in Alaska.
And she noted that Todd Palin, a commercial fisherman who also works as a production operator in the oil fields, seems to help.
"Families who live public lives such as actors and politicians have access to many more resources and much more professional help than other families," she said. "There are many families in America who have both parents working full time without these options."
Kathleen Levenston, a working mom in the Richmond area, doesn't identify with either political party. She's dismayed that the question of how well Palin could perform as a mom and a vice president even comes up.
"I am not concerned about Palin's family constellation," she said.
"I have plenty of concerns about the Republican platform, but I do not have an opinion about whether or not Mrs. Palin is doing a good job as a mother.
"She is a professional, and it is up to her to figure out a way to meet her responsibilities."
Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or omeola@timesdispatch.com
Staff writer Jim Nolan contributed to this report.
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
LOAD-DATE: September 7, 2008
ACC-NO: 20080907-RV-Palin-stirs-debate-on-bias-social-change-0907
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 7, 2008 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
The next president of the United States
Annapolis grads for Obama
Re "McCain seen as having an edge with military members, vets," front page, Sept. 4:
The story spotlights the opinion of former POW Paul Galanti of Richmond who said, "Everyone I know who's ever worn a uniform will vote for McCain."
Galanti and I attended the Naval Academy together, and we are classmates from 1962. I believe that Paul believes what he said, but that does not make it true.
On the other hand, I will give you a fact -- every single Naval Academy graduate with whom I now correspond with intends to vote for Obama and against McCain. In both cases, a "so what?" is in order.
So, let's take a closer look at why Paul says he is for McCain. His idea is that we are at war and we need a "wartime president." That is absurd when you know the war being discussed was not necessary, was based on lies, is counterproductive to the interests of the U.S. and needs to be ended as soon as possible. What we really need is a peacetime president, and that is why we need Barack Obama.
Joseph Corcoran
Machipongo
Alaskan abstinence
According to the Chicago Tribune, our new vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, favored sex-abstinence education versus a more proactive, informative approach. The paper reported that "Palin addressed teen pregnancy prevention in her 2006 run for governor, indicating on a questionnaire that she favored abstinence-until-marriage education over explicit sex education programs, school-based clinics and condom distribution in schools. The high school that Bristol Palin attended for part of last year, Wasilla High School, teaches abstinence in health class, its principal said."
Unfortunately, if Bristol had been informed of preventative measures, and, in fact, used a condom or other birth control, Gov. Palin would possibly not have a daughter who is 5 months pregnant. Apparently, her daughter did not receive the message about abstinence until marriage and was ignorant in ways to prevent a pregnancy. What a colossal failure on all accounts.
Marylou DeCamillis
Virginia Beach
Just politics
Am I the only one "getting it" about why John McCain can say we need no new taxes? If you look at a list of pork awards from individual congress persons to their constituents, you can see how to fatten our treasury immediately by cutting them out.
With our treasury refilled, why would we need to tax? There is a maxim that our forefathers understood: You owe no loyalty to a government that cannot govern justly. By just, I mean decent roads, decent schools and decent medical policies. Our present government willfully turns its back on what is good for the nation as a whole and focuses on that which is good for getting officials re-elected.
Ben Franklin said we get the government we deserve. Perhaps it's true. Maybe that's why I feel like I'm tugging on Superman's cape. I love my nation, warts and all. My heart aches that individual opportunism (exhibited by too many of our congressional members) seems to have replaced that obligation to honor the social contract between governed and governing.
Karen E. Inderlied
Virginia Beach
House cleaning needed
Re "From Dean to McCain in four years," op-ed, Aug. 31:
The writer's basic premise seems to be that because the current Bush administration has so damaged this country that the Republican Party will lose significant seats in the Congress and that the Democratic Party will almost certainly control the next Congress.
If that is the worry, then why reward eight years of mismanagement with another four years of this type of administration? John McCain, in his own words, is not so interested in domestic policy. Logically then, he would allow political appointees, good Republicans all, to keep running departments that Republicans have already mismanaged or destroyed.
McCain is not the problem. We need a thorough cleaning of the Bush/Cheney bunch that is destroying this nation. McCain will not do this. I don't expect Barack Obama will ever make up for our failure to remove President Bush four years ago. But it is absolutely certain that John McCain won't.
Kenneth L. Ehrenthal
Chesapeake
Not a dime's difference
Just what we need! A senior citizen and statesman paired with a political novice trying to win the election! Who am I talking about? Obama or McCain? I can't tell the difference either!
Michele Baird
Virginia Beach
American turning point
Finally! The Aug. 28 front page of The Pilot ("Barack Obama makes history") was one for the ages. The photo of Democratic delegate Moe Spencer of Washington captured perfectly an extraordinary and long overdue moment in our nation's history.
The tears streaming down his face, with his gritty smile, presented a look of unadulterated joy, justice and hope, a level of emotion not often experienced in a lifetime. From 2,000 miles away, I shared that moment with watery eyes and a lump in my throat. But his photo showed a depth of emotion that I, a Caucasian, could only imagine. Feeling sadness for past injustices and joy for new successes, only one word came to mind: finally. Finally, we had confronted massive injustice and made right.
It's been 389 years since the first black man arrived in Jamestown, 221 years since the Constitution proclaimed him three-fifths of a person, 145 since Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and 132 since Rutherford Hayes gave birth to 88 years of segregation by trading an end of Reconstruction for Electoral College votes that won an election. It's been 60 years since Truman desegregated the armed forces, 50 years since Virginia's Massive Resistance laws closed our schools rather than integrate them and 44 years since civil rights legislation ended segregation in the United States.
What was not obvious on Aug. 27 was that it's been 221 years since Abigail Adams reminded her husband not to forget the women as he left to attend the Constitutional Convention, 88 years since the 19th Amendment allowed women to vote and only two months since Hillary Clinton put "18 million cracks" in the glass ceiling. As a nation, we have not always been true to our stated principles. It sometimes seems as if we will never get there. But the good news is that we keep trying to make it right.
And now, whenever a native-born child -- black, white, red, brown, yellow, male or female -- asks a parent or teacher: "Can I be president?" The answer is "Yes, you can."
Robert MacIver
Virginia Beach
Winning vs. governing
Re "From Dean to McCain in four years," op-ed, Aug. 31:
The writer says that divided government is the way to go because if Barack Obama should win and Democrats maintain their hold on Congress, there will be no way for the nation to get to the "pragmatic" center.
First, he is confusing Democratic Party-run government, which actually works, with Republican-run government. Its right-wingers know how to win elections through fear and smear but can't actually govern after they win.
Second, the writer's one-sided view of John McCain as war hero and moderate leader of the people does not take into account his hyper-hawkish neo-con allegiance, blatant ignorance of our teetering economy and ideological bondage to the extremist far right. There's no maverick left in him.
Paul Hughes
Virginia Beach
Pastoral discipline
Re "An inconvenient debate: Abortion," Saturday Break, Aug. 30:
Adelle M. Banks of the Religion News Service wrote of the tension caused by Catholics in public office whose decisions of conscience conflict with official church teaching on abortion.
Several U.S. Catholic bishops, namely Saltarelli recently of Wilmington, Del., and Burke, of St. Louis, have sanctioned prominent politicians, Sens. Joe Biden and John Kerry, on this issue.
It is interesting that Saltarelli accepted a large contribution from Biden for a school building, but, for his pro-choice position, refused to "honor" Biden by naming this building for the senator, his lifelong Catholic contributor.
Apparently these "pastoral" leaders do not accept (or they ignore) the official teaching of the Church's Council of Trent (1545-1563), as well as the U.S. bishop's recent document entitled Faithful Citizenship. Both are unequivocal in stating that the ultimate criterion for a person's decision is the individual's conscience. Conscience alone dictates whether an individual action is right or wrong.
Charles M. Warthen
Virginia Beach
Fowl accusation
Are the chickens coming home to roost? The Obama campaign ("Sharp attack ad hits Va. airwaves," front page, Sept. 1) is complaining about ads focusing on his association with Bill Ayers, a violent Vietnam-era underground group known as the Weathermen. Obama is pleading that he was only 8 years old in the 1960s when those events happened and that he "denounces violence."
He was, however, an adult in 1993-2001 when he and Ayers served on the board of directors of a supposedly tax-exempt organization known as the Woods Fund of Chicago. One of the disbursements for $6,000 was given to the Trinity United Church of Christ, pastored by his minister of 20 years, the Rev. Jerimiah Wright. He is the one who uttered the expletive about America and proclaimed that America deserved the 9/11 attack and that the chickens had come home to roost.
Obama says professor Ayers "lived in his neighborhood," was an upright guy he only knew casually. It is no wonder that campaign is crying foul, or should it be fowl?
G. Frank Roberts
Virginia Beach
Oil company surge
Re "Surge vindicates McCain," letter, Sept. 1:
The writer asserts that the surge in Iraq was a success. Am I the only one who noticed that this success coincided with the Iraqi government signing an agreement handing over oil production to four huge oil companies?
Terri Lombardi
Virginia Beach
Too few cooks in the kitchen
I was struck during Gov. Sarah Palin's acceptance speech of the insensitivity she showed to the family cook she dismissed from the governor's staff, one of her efforts to save Alaskans some money. I wonder how the fired cook felt about losing her job? Has the cook now been added to the millions of unemployed that already exist in America? I would hope the governor has better things to do than cook family meals, much less for one with five children.
Nonie Booth
Kitty Hawk, N.C.
Missing maverick
After seeing Sen. Joe Lieberman's speech decrying partisanship, presidential candidate John McCain's choice of Gov. Sarah Palin is all the more confusing.
If it's true that McCain preferred Lieberman as a running mate, but bowed to pressure from the GOP base in his choice of Palin, one has to wonder if we've lost our champion of common sense and common ground for good.
Lieberman may have been an unpopular choice among conservatives, but for longtime fans of McCain and undecided voters like myself, it would have been an inspiring show of political courage and a stunning reinforcement of the campaign's "Country First" slogan.
Michael Gentry
Virginia Beach
LOAD-DATE: September 8, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 7, 2008 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Don't be fooled by 'spontaneity' - it was all conventional
TROPICAL STORM Hanna, twirling around town as I write this, was just a gentle breeze compared with the great gusts of hot air created by partisan windbags during the last fortnight.
Frankly, it's refreshing. This spirited little cyclone was the first unscripted event on TV since delegates descended on Denver.
Because, when you strip away the signs, the speeches and the slogans, when you look beyond the flags and the funny hats at these week long infomercials, the national political conventions are nothing more than TV productions cooked up by political philistines to telegraph subliminal messages.
For instance, Democrats want you to think their convention was about change. It wasn't.
And Republicans want you to think their convention was about putting country first. Not really.
The subtle message of Denver was "Barack Obama Loves America."
And the real theme in St. Paul was "John McCain Isn't George Bush."
Americans will vote only for a candidate they believe is patriotic. The Democratic extravaganza was a slick exercise to allay any fears of the Obamas.
It's also true that America will not vote to give the Bush camp four more years to get it right. So the party set out to convince voters that John McCain is a different kind of Republican.
And Hurricane Gustav was a gift. It rained on the opening night and blew the president and Dick Cheney offstage.
The danger in political conventions is in forgetting these are television shows. From the speakers (and those not allowed to speak) to the signs permitted in the room, these are scripted events with no risky ad-libbing.
Delegates are mere extras, dutifully waving whatever goofy sign is handed to them and rabidly cheering every time their state is mentioned.
(Incidentally, how do perfectly normal people, who hear the word "Virginia" hundreds of times a day without reacting, turn into raving lunatics when someone utters the V-word at a convention? Weird.)
Here's an example of the lengths political parties will go to in order to seduce viewers.
Perhaps you've noticed those hand-lettered signs that folks in the cheap seats wave. You know, the colorful "Vets \uE0A4 Obama" and "Hispanics \uE0A4 McCain" poster boards. Ever wondered how they smuggle these things in, when the doors to the conventions are thick with security and all sorts of contraband are strictly forbidden?
On the final night of the Republican convention, when I spied campaign workers handing out these faux- amateur signs, it hit me: Somewhere in the bowels of the convention centers are armies of artistically impaired volunteers with tempera paints.
They mass-produce silly signs that the TV cameras will caress to show unwitting viewers this is a spontaneous love fest.
It's enough to make you long for an impromptu storm.
Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net
LOAD-DATE: September 8, 2008
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All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 7, 2008 Sunday
Regional Edition
5;
Myths About Those Civic-Minded, Deeply Informed Voters
SECTION: OUTLOOK; Pg. B05
One thing both Democrats and Republicans agreed about in their vastly different conventions: The American voter will not only decide but decide wisely. But does the electorate really know what it's talking about? Plenty of things are hurting American democracy -- gridlock, negative campaigning, special interests -- but one factor lies at the root of all the others, and nobody dares to discuss it. American voters, who are hiring the people who'll run a superpower democracy, are grossly ignorant. Here are a few particularly bogus claims about their supposed savvy.
1. Our voters are pretty smart.
You hear this one from politicians all the time, even John McCain, who promises straight talk, and Barack Obama, who claims that he's not a politician (by which he means that he'll tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear). But by every measure social scientists have devised, voters are spectacularly uninformed. They don't follow politics, and they don't know how their government works. According to an August 2006 Zogby poll, only two in five Americans know that we have three branches of government and can name them. A 2006 National Geographic poll showed that six in ten young people (aged 18 to 24) could not find Iraq on the map. The political scientists Michael Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, surveying a wide variety of polls measuring knowledge of history, report that fewer than half of all Americans know who Karl Marx was or which war the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought in. Worse, they found that just 49 percent of Americans know that the only country ever to use a nuclear weapon in a war is their own.
True, many voters can tell you who's ahead and who's behind in the horse race. But most of what they know about the candidates' positions on the issues -- and remember, our candidates are running to make policy, not talk about their biographies -- derives from what voters learn from stupid and often misleading 30-second commercials, according to Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
2. Bill O'Reilly's viewers are dumber than Jon Stewart's.
Liberals wish. Democrats like to think that voters who sympathize with their views are smarter than those who vote Republican. But a 2007 Pew survey found that the knowledge level of viewers of the right-wing, blustery "The O'Reilly Factor" and the left-wing, snarky "The Daily Show" is comparable, with about 54 percent of the shows' politicized viewers scoring in the "high knowledge" category.
So what about conservative talk-radio titan Rush Limbaugh's audience? Surely the ditto-heads are dumb, right? Actually, according to a survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, Rush's listeners are better educated and "more knowledgeable about politics and social issues" than the average voter.
3. If you just give Americans the facts, they'll be able to draw the right conclusions.
Unfortunately, no. Many social scientists have long tried to downplay the ignorance of voters, arguing that the mental "short cuts" voters use to make up for their lack of information work pretty well. But the evidence from the past few years proves that a majority can easily be bamboozled.
Just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, after months of unsubtle hinting from Bush administration officials, some 60 percent of Americans had come to believe that Iraq was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, despite the absence of evidence for the claim, according to a series of surveys taken by the PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll. A year later, after the bipartisan, independent 9/11 Commission reported that Saddam Hussein had had nothing to do with al-Qaeda's assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 50 percent of Americans still insisted that he did. In other words, the public was bluntly given the data by a group of officials generally believed to be credible -- and it still didn't absorb the most basic facts about the most important event of their time.
4. Voters today are smarter than they used to be.
Actually, by most measures, voters today possess the same level of political knowledge as their parents and grandparents, and in some categories, they score lower. In the 1950s, only 10 percent of voters were incapable of citing any ways in which the two major parties differed, according to Thomas E. Patterson of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, who leads the Pew-backed Vanishing Voter Project. By the 1970s, that number had jumped to nearly 30 percent.
Here's what makes these numbers deplorable -- and, in fact, almost incomprehensible: Education levels are far higher today than they were half a century ago, when social scientists first began surveying voter knowledge about politics. (In 1940, six in ten Americans hadn't made it past the eighth grade.) The moral of this story: Schooling alone doesn't translate into better educated voters.
5. Young voters are paying a lot of attention to the news.
Again, no. Despite all the hoopla about young voters -- the great hope of the future! -- only one news story in 2001 drew the attention of a majority of them: 9/11. Some 60 percent of young voters told Pew researchers that they were following news about the attack closely. (Er -- 40 percent weren't?) But none of the other stories that year seemed particularly interesting to them. Only 32 percent said that they followed the news about the anthrax attacks or the economy, then in recession. The capture of Kabul from the Taliban? Just 20 percent.
Six years later, Pew again measured public knowledge of current events and found that the young (aged 18 to 29) "know the least." A majority of young respondents scored in the "low knowledge" category -- the only demographic group to do so.
And some other statistics are even more alarming. How many young people read newspapers? Just 20 percent. (Worse, studies consistently show that people who do not pick up the newspaper-reading habit in their 20s rarely do so later.) But surely today's youth are getting their news from the Internet? Sorry. Only 11 percent of the young report that they regularly surf the Internet for news. Maybe Obama shouldn't be relying on savvy young voters after all.
rick@howstupidblog.com
Rick Shenkman is an associate professor of history at George Mason University and the author of "Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter."
LOAD-DATE: September 7, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
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Treasury to take over Fannie, Freddie;
Will provide cash infusions to calm mortgage market
BYLINE: By Patrice Hill, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The nation's yearlong housing and financial markets crisis entered a new and unprecedented stage this weekend as the Treasury Department prepared to take control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure that Americans can continue to have easy access to cheap mortgage credit.
Attempts by Freddie Mac, the more troubled of the two mortgage-finance giants, to raise money in private markets have faltered in recent weeks since the Treasury pushed through legislation enabling it to provide the mortgage agencies with a financial backstop.
Freddie's wavering fortunes, combined with escalating default rates on home loans, have forced up the cost of mortgages and held back the struggling housing market.
In a dramatic attempt to break the downward spiral in the credit and housing markets, the Treasury has informed Fannie and Freddie that it will take control of the agencies and provide regular cash infusions as necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the mortgage markets, according to government and Wall Street sources who have been briefed on the plan.
The Treasury's move, which exposes taxpayers to an estimated $25 billion to $100 billion in costs, is expected as soon as Sunday. The structure and extent of the intervention was not clear, one official said.
Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, effectively confirmed the imminent bailout during a rally Saturday in Colorado Springs.
The Associated Press said he cited the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as yet another example of the nation's economic problems: "Today, we're looking at a federal bailout of our home-loan agencies."
Mrs. Palin, at the same rally, suggested a McCain administration would scale back the two companies. "They've gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers. The McCain-Palin administration will make them smaller and smarter and more effective for homeowners who need help."
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, campaigning Saturday in Terre Haute, Ind., said he had been briefed on the plan Friday night by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.
Mr. Obama said the plan must put taxpayers first and not reward investors and speculators "who relied on the government to reap massive profits," according to the AP. But he said he would withhold judgment until he sees details of the program.
Altogether, the two mortgage giants own or guarantee more than half of U.S. mortgages, and their importance increased greatly this year after the private market for mortgages imploded. Fannie and Freddie currently fund around three-quarters of all mortgages in the country, making them indispensable to the economy in the eyes of Mr. Paulson.
The Treasury's action is expected to wipe out most of the value of Fannie and Freddie common stock, a government official said. The status of the companies' other obligations was not clear.
As a condition of taking what the Treasury hopes will be temporary control of the agencies, the government will insist on the departure of Fannie Mae Chief Executive Daniel Mudd and Freddie Mac Chief Executive Richard Syron, both highly paid executives who have been unable to turn the companies around as they sank deeper into the mortgage morass this year. The Treasury also will oust the companies' boards of directors and senior management.
Sung Won Sohn, economics professor at California State University, said the government has to shore up Fannie and Freddie not only to prop up the housing and mortgage markets, but to protect the nation's increasingly fragile banks and other institutions that are heavily invested in mortgages and real estate. Several U.S. banks have gone under this year in California and other areas experiencing serious housing busts.
"Some sort of government assistance is desperately needed. It is not just Fannie and Freddie the government has to worry about. Almost every financial institution, including commercial banks, own significant amounts of mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by the two," Mr. Sohn said.
Fannie and Freddie's obligations also are widely held worldwide by foreign central banks and investors. The Bank of China and the Bank of Japan have some of the biggest holdings. But recent auctions of Freddie's debt have shown that foreigners have grown more reluctant to lend the mortgage agencies money on the lenient terms of the past.
The temporary takeover of the agencies, which was authorized by Congress this summer, is the best way to try to nurse them and the mortgage market back to health, Mr. Sohn said.
Full nationalization of the firms with their $5.2 trillion in debts would be unwise, he said, because among other things, it would nearly double U.S. debt obligations and put pressure on the government's own impeccable credit ratings. "Some worry Uncle Sam could be downgraded," he said.
Standard & Poor's Corp. last week cited the growing problems of Fannie, Freddie and other U.S. financial institutions as a remote "risk" to the country's AAA ratings. It estimated that the cost of propping up the financial system in a "deep and prolonged recession" could be as much as a quarter of U.S. economic output, or about $3 trillion.
"The probability of a portion of this potential cost being realized has risen," said S&P credit analyst Nikola Swann. "Most notably, falling house prices and rising mortgage delinquencies have raised the odds that the government will have to provide direct assistance" to the Federal Housing Administration as well as Fannie and Freddie, she said.
While Fannie Mae is thought to be in better condition than Freddie Mac, with fewer subprime loans on its books, it has been hit increasingly by defaults on prime mortgages in areas of Florida, California and Nevada, where home prices have fallen by as much as 50 percent and people are choosing to walk away from their homes and mortgage obligations. Recent estimates show that nearly one in 10 U.S. mortgages is behind payment or in foreclosure.
Even though Fannie Mae has had less trouble than Freddie Mac raising funds in the equity and debt markets, Joshua Rosner, managing director at Graham Fisher & Co., a Wall Street firm, said the government cannot just take control of one firm without putting the other at an instant disadvantage in the funding markets. That is why the Treasury is preparing to take over both, he said.
Mr. Rosner said that Fannie Mae's losses are likely to grow because it purchased many poorly underwritten loans from Countrywide, formerly the top mortgage lender, which went down in flames last year and was purchased by Bank of America. He estimated that nearly a third of the mortgages Fannie bought last year were made by Countrywide, and they are experiencing high default rates.
LOAD-DATE: September 7, 2008
GRAPHIC: TAKEOVER: Freddie Mac, based in McLean, has had more trouble raising funds than Fannie Mae, but the Treasury Department is preparing to take control of both mortgage giants. [Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]
Fannie Mae, with headquarters in Washington, will be taken over at least temporarily by the Treasury Department, along with mortgage-agency cousin Freddie Mac. Top executives from both organizations are expected to be ousted. [Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 6, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Soon, they'll be everywhere
BYLINE: DALE EISMAN | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
The next time your phone rings, don't be surprised if John McCain's on the line. And if you watch television for more than 10 minutes at a stretch, there's a good chance you'll see Barack Obama.
After decades in which Virginians were all but forgotten by presidential candidates, voters here are getting the kind of political attention typically reserved for voters in swing states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, campaign aides and analysts said this week.
And more of the same is on the way.
Unless polls show one ticket pulling away, the next eight weeks are likely to see a steady stream of personal appearances in Hampton Roads and across the state by the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees and their running mates, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, plus a fusillade of television ads, robo-calls, and e-mail and snail-mail appeals.
Local television ad purchases in Hampton Roads passed the $1 million mark before Labor Day, the traditional campaign kickoff time, according to records kept by local stations. That volume is unprecedented, said Cindi Dove, general sales manager at local CBS affiliate WTKR.
Biden was in Virginia Beach on Thursday. Palin, McCain's surprise choice for vice president , will visit the resort city on Sept. 18.
As the Republican National Convention ended Thursday , aides to the candidates also hinted at plans for additional visits later this month by both Obama and McCain.
"It's clear we've designated Virginia as a battleground state. ... You're going to see a full-court press in every facet of this campaign," said Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for the Obama campaign.
Obama volunteers in Virginia knocked on 120,000 doors last weekend to distribute campaign literature, Griffis said, and hosted 1,000 parties to watch the candidate accept the Democratic nomination.
Republicans are busy, too. Along with Palin's planned trip to Virginia Beach, she is likely to show up repeatedly elsewhere around Hampton Roads and in the suburbs of both Richmond and Washington, said Gerry Scimeca, communications director for the state GOP.
In recent statewide races, Democrats have rolled up huge margins in the sprawling D.C. suburbs and have carried or run close to Republicans in former GOP strongholds such as Virginia Beach. Scimeca said self- described hockey mom Palin's ability to combine family and career should help her appeal to thousands of suburban women doing the same thing .
Palin also will be used to rally Christian conservatives, a key constituency for the party in Virginia, said Mark Rozell, a political scientist at George Mason University in Fairfax.
Many of those voters have "absolutely no enthusiasm" for McCain, Rozell said. The Arizonan dismissed television evangelists, including broadcaster Pat Robertson of Virginia Beach, as "agents of intolerance" in 2000, but Palin seems to have energized them, Rozell added.
Palin's small-town background presents yet another challenge to Democrats in rural areas. Party leaders such as Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, Sen. Jim Webb and Senate candidate Mark Warner have worked hard to make inroads, but Obama ran weakly in those areas during the state's presidential primary.
"We've got to be careful how we talk about her," said Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, a veteran Democratic strategist from southwest Virginia. Suggestions that Palin's experience as a small-town mayor hasn't prepared her for national office aren't likely to be well-received across the state's southside and southwest, he said.
Pilot writer Bill Sizemore contributed to this report.
Dale Eisman, (703) 913-9872
dale.eisman@pilotonline.com
presence
Republican presidential running mate Sarah Palin has announced a trip to Virginia Beach on Sept. 18 and is likely to show up repeatedly elsewhere around Hampton Roads.
Volunteers of the Obama cam paign in Virginia knocked on 120,000 doors last weekend to distribute campaign literature. big money ads
Local television ad purchases in Hampton Roads passed the $1 million mark before Labor Day, the traditional campaign kickoff time, according to records kept by local stations. That volume is unprecedented, said Cindi Dove, general sales manager at local CBS affiliate WTKR.
LOAD-DATE: September 7, 2008
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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 6, 2008 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
- top bLetters Head goes here and goes here and goes here and goes here
This week's top bLetters to the editor at PilotOnline.com:
1. "Obama the taxcutter" by Kathy Wilson, Sept. 2, on tax cut proposals: 26 comments
2. "Surge vindicates McCain" by Michael H. O'Connell, Sept. 1, on McCain's leadership on Iraq: 18 comments
3. "Obama's friends" by Bill Fitzgerald, Sept. 1, on "Weatherman" attack ad: 16 comments
4. "Shades of Harriet Miers" by Dave George, Sept. 3, on McCain's VP choice, Sarah Palin: 14 comments
5. "A maternal duty" by Marguerite Synon Felt, Sept. 4, on Gov. Palin's pregnant daughter: 14 comments
\uFFFC
LOAD-DATE: September 7, 2008
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The Washington Post
September 6, 2008 Saturday
Met 2 Edition
Jobless Rate In August Hit A 5-Year High
BYLINE: Neil Irwin; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
Businesses slashed jobs and the nation's unemployment rate hit a five-year high in August, the government reported yesterday, dashing hopes that the economy might stabilize in the second half of the year and showing that trouble has spread far beyond the housing and financial sectors.
As the economy weakened in the beginning of 2008, many economists held out hope that it would soon stabilize, or even improve. But with consumers spending less, the housing and stock markets dropping further, and a once-gradual decline in the job market turning into a steep slide, that doesn't appear to be happening.
The unemployment rate rose to 6.1 percent, from 5.7 percent in July, according to the data released yesterday, making for the most severe four-month rise in joblessness since 1981. More people looked for second jobs to help make ends meet, with little apparent success.
Meanwhile the nation's employers cut 84,000 net jobs, the eighth consecutive month of declines. They have shed a combined 600,000 positions from their payrolls in 2008. Of major categories of employers, only the health-care industry and government added jobs in August.
"These are really ugly numbers," said Scott Anderson, a senior economist at Wells Fargo. "There's been optimism out there that we might be nearing an endpoint, that housing is stabilizing, that the stock market may have turned a corner. But this reinforces the view that things are going to get worse before they get better."
The new data immediately became fodder on the campaign trail, and further pushed the issue of the economy into the spotlight ahead of the presidential election. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee, seized on the numbers to link Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), to President Bush's economic policies, saying the Republican candidate would only cut taxes for big companies. McCain called for more job training and said that Obama's tax plan would stifle growth.
The dismal numbers released yesterday go beyond the job market. Mortgage foreclosures rose 1.2 percent in the second quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the sharpest rate of increase in the 29-year history of the group's survey. Earlier in the week, many of the nation's largest chain retailers announced disappointing August sales numbers, indicating that the back-to-school selling season was a bust. Automakers have been hurting, too. Ford said that it doesn't expect a rebound in vehicle sales this year and that it is cutting production by another 50,000 cars and trucks.
Even industries that have experienced little direct hit from the housing and financial crisis are now reeling; for example, Ciena, a Maryland-based maker of network equipment, said this week that telecommunications companies are becoming more cautious about investments, sending its profit down 59 percent. Overall, the stock market fell 3.4 percent this week, as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Stocks were roughly flat Friday.
Economic data from the late spring and summer had been reasonably positive, partly because government stimulus payments went out during that period, and exports boomed. Further tax rebates are not likely this year, however, and the slowing European and Asian economies are likely to lessen demand for U.S. exports.
"We're seeing what the emperor looks like disrobed," said David Rosenberg, chief economist at Merrill Lynch. "We had the largest fiscal rebate package of all time in the second quarter, and it was big enough to keep GDP positive, but we're now entering the consumer leg of this economic downturn."
With those boosts gone, people are being hammered on multiple fronts. They're losing wealth as real estate and stock market values fall. Banks and other lenders have become more reluctant to approve loans, making it more difficult for consumers to borrow money to ride out the hard times, and as was made clear by yesterday's release, the job market has gone from mediocre to lousy since the spring.
The climate is akin to what the nation experienced during the recession almost 20 years ago, when Americans were confronted by a slow-moving set of interrelated crises. It started with a downturn in commercial real estate in 1988, spread to savings and loans in 1989 and 1990, causing lending to freeze up; the brunt of job losses and rising unemployment occurred in 1991.
Now, as then, there are feedback loops whereby problems in one segment of the economy and financial system affect the others. More conservative lending by banks causes higher unemployment, and the unemployed are more likely to default on their home-equity loans, causing banks to lose money and pull back even more.
There is some good news: Prices for oil and other commodities are dropping, which should lower what people pay for gasoline and other fuels in the months ahead. However, prices for energy and food remain well above what they were a year ago and consumers will face higher heating bills as the weather turns cold.
The unemployment rate in August rose most among women, to 5.3 percent from 4.7 percent; blacks, to 10.6 percent from 9.7 percent; and Hispanics, to 8 percent from 7.4 percent. There was one possible silver lining in the weaker jobless numbers: In August, unemployment benefits were extended over a longer span, which may have made people more inclined to wait before accepting a job offer.
The weak job market is hurting even those who still have jobs, in that workers have less leverage to negotiate raises. Average weekly pay for nonmanagerial workers rose 3.3 percent in the last year, which is likely to be less than inflation.
"What is worrisome is that more full-time workers have been laid off, more people are being forced to work part time who want to work full time and more people are trying to get multiple jobs to make ends meet," said Bruce Kasman, chief economist of J.P. Morgan Chase.
The cuts by employers were spread widely. Manufacturers cut 61,000 jobs, reflecting less demand for goods. Retailers, dealing with skittish consumers and some bankruptcies, slashed 20,000 jobs. Professional and business services firms cut 53,000 jobs, heavily concentrated in cuts in temporary help. Even the nation's hotels and restaurants, which had been strong, cut back, with the leisure and hospitality sector cutting 4,000 jobs.
One surprising statistic: The construction industry, which has steadily slashed jobs this year, cut only 8,000 positions in August. It has averaged a loss of 36,000 jobs a month over the past year. But last month's modest losses may indicate that the sector, which is at the epicenter of the downturn, simply doesn't have many more jobs to lose.
LOAD-DATE: September 6, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE
IMAGE; By Toby Talbot -- Associated Press; People apply for jobs at the Career Resource Center in Barre, Vt., yesterday. The nation's unemployment rate zoomed to a five-year high in August.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 5, 2008 Friday
State Edition
McCain promises change;
Republican pledges unity to 'get this country moving again'
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-1
DATELINE: ST. PAUL, Minn.
John McCain, a POW turned political rebel, vowed last night to vanquish the "constant partisan rancor" plaguing the nation as he launched his fall campaign for the White House. "Change is coming" to Washington, he promised the Republican National Convention.
"I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again," McCain said in remarks prepared for the prime-time address. "I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not," he said of his rival for the White House, Sen. Barack Obama.
McCain also invoked the five years he spent in a North Vietnamese prison. "I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's," he said. "I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's."
McCain's speech was the highlight of the final night of the party convention, but before he took the podium, delegates unanimously awarded the vice presidential nomination to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. She is the first female ticketmate in Republican history.
McCain, 72 and campaigning to become the oldest first-term president in history, faced a delicate assignment as he formally accepted his party's presidential nomination: presenting his credentials as a reformer willing to take on his own party and stressing his independence from an unpopular President Bush - all without breaking faith with his Republican base.
He and Palin were departing their convention city immediately after the Arizona senator's acceptance speech, bound for Wisconsin and an early start on the final weeks of the White House campaign.
Palin has been the object of intense scrutiny since McCain tapped her as his running mate last week. "I'm very proud to have introduced our next vice president to the country," he said. "But I can't wait until I introduce her to Washington."
The last night of the McCain-Palin convention also marked the end of an intensive stretch of politics with the potential to reshape the race. Democrats held their own convention last week in Denver, nominating Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. as running mate for Obama.
The polls indicate a close race between McCain and Obama, at 47 a generation younger than his Republican opponent, with the outcome likely to be decided in scattered swing states in the industrial Midwest and the Southwest.
Earlier yesterday, Cindy McCain recommended her husband to the nation. "If Americans want straight talk and the plain truth they should take a good close look at John McCain ... a man tested and true ... who's never wavered in his devotion to our country," she said in prepared remarks. She called him "a man who's served in Washington without ever becoming a Washington insider."
Outside the hall, more than 100 demonstrators calling for an end to the Iraq war were arrested earlier in the day.
Palin affair report "vicious lie": McCain's campaign is denying a National Enquirer report that vice presidential candidate Palin had an extramarital affair. "It's a vicious lie," spokesman Steve Schmidt said. The campaign is considering legal action, the senior adviser added.
The National Enquirer wrote in its edition dated Sept. 15 that Palin had an affair with a business associate of her husband, Todd Palin. He discovered the infidelity and dissolved the business, the article said. It attributed the allegation only to "an enemy" of the Alaska governor.
Millions watch Palin: More than 40 million people tuned in to the Republican convention Wednesday to hear vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin introduce herself to voters.
That audience rivaled the one for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama last week. Nielsen Media Research estimated 37.2 million people watched Palin on either ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel or MSNBC. PBS estimated it had four million viewers for the speech. Last week Obama had 38.4 million viewers on the commercial networks, also topping 40 million with PBS and C-SPAN added in.
Those are bigger audiences than the "American Idol" finale or Academy Awards.
LOAD-DATE: September 9, 2008
NOTES: REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION Final Edition story also in Merlin
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
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Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 5, 2008 Friday
State Edition
Finally, campaign hits the home stretch;
New faces, new themes in play with two months to go until Election Day
SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-7
DATELINE: ST. PAUL, Minn.
New characters are on stage. Scripts have been revised with a fall audience in mind.
And now that the back-to-back political conventions are over, the longest-running presidential campaign in memory enters its home stretch - finally - with the promise of new drama.
The dynamics are notably different today from just a couple of weeks ago, when Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama were still only their parties' presumptive nominees.
Gov. Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate changes the story line significantly, a decided curve for a Democratic team unprepared for the hockey-mom-as-attack-dog scenario.
McCain is signaling a shift in his "we're more experienced" theme by naming a vice presidential candidate who still features the PTA on her résumé.
And there's no accounting for how Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr. could shake things up as Obama's recently added sidekick, a smart and quirky character with as much propensity to upstage as to stick his foot in his mouth.
With two months, four debates (one of them pitting Palin against Biden) and miles to go before its conclusion, the real show starts today.
Coming out of his nominating convention in Denver, Obama has already benefited from what pollsters call "the bounce" - roughly a 5-point gain in opinion polls after four days of televised convention coverage and only modest attention paid to his opponent.
The typical gain coming out of the convention is somewhere between 5 and 7 points, though, and the comparable results aren't in yet in the wake of McCain's acceptance speech.
The buzz from the conventions, the dynamism of the new running mates - none of it matters if the candidates themselves can't sell their stories.
"Vice presidents are picked for a reason. Biden was picked to fill a hole in Obama's résumé," said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. "Palin was picked in order to do something John McCain has never been able to do, and that's excite the Republican base.... They can fill the holes in the dike, but the dike has to hold as a whole."
In one stroke this week, McCain fired up the conservatives of his party while also reaching out to independent and centrist Democrats who may be tempted to stray from Obama. The right wing of the GOP has been ecstatic over the choice of Palin, who grew up in a traditional Pentecostal church, hunts with guns and opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest.
Palin's down-home bona fides - before becoming governor of Alaska, she was a small-town mayor - are bait for a significant school of voters who never took to Obama in the primary season.
And that brings the narrative to a resurgent character, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Long a part of the Obama strategy for courting the contingent of voters who followed her in the primary, Clinton became even more crucial to the mix the minute Palin joined the Republican ticket.
"It's going to be a race for those disaffected white blue-collar workers and their families, with all their angst over whether they can pay the mortgage," said Tom Whalen, a Boston University political scientist and author. "Hillary better hit the campaign trail for the Democrats, or Palin is going to steal their thunder on those important issues."
The fundraising machines are going full-bore, as are the ad makers. The campaign caravans are heading out to the battleground states. The entire campaign has now been collapsed to nine intense weeks until Nov. 4.
LOAD-DATE: September 9, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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The Washington Post
September 5, 2008 Friday
Met 2 Edition
Red-Carpet Treatment;
'Access Hollywood's' Maria Menounos, Covering a Caucus of Politics and Celebrity
BYLINE: Libby Copeland; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A28
DATELINE: ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 4
There is no better view of the worlds of celebrity and politics converging than here, in an NBC box above the convention floor, where Maria Menounos is about to tape her daily report.
"I'm at the Republican National Convention, as all eyes focused on Sarah Palin -- her hair, her makeup, her campaign couture," Menounos says, looking down at her script, practicing out loud. " 'Access Hollywood' breaks down Sarah's style."
And why not? Everybody wants a piece of politics these days, including outlets traditionally associated with celebrity gossip. When OK! magazine offers a double-cover issue, with one side about Barack Obama ("Life With My Girls") and the other about Sarah Palin ("A Mother's Painful Choice"), and both those stories trump the first photos of Halle Berry's baby girl (!), you know something strange is happening. When Us Weekly's Web site poll about whether Palin would make a good vice president is right there with the poll about whether J. Lo should have more kids -- oh yeah, there is no going back.
It's best just to follow and see where Menounos is going. It's Wednesday and she looks red-carpet ready: Prada top, Chanel necklace. ("It's the little details," whispers her makeup guy, Bret, after he adjusts those strands for the camera.) Already Menounos has taped a segment about "a $60 white burp cloth" that 17-year-old celebrity mom Jamie Lynn Spears may or may not have sent to Palin's pregnant 17-year-old daughter. Menounos is the perfect vehicle for proving the convergence of political and celebrity reporting, because in addition to working for "Access," which lives on the red carpet, she also reports for two other NBC programs -- "Today" and "Nightly News." She does analysis of the Republican youth vote, and she does burp cloths.
Menounos, 30, has a sense of humor about the weird sphere she inhabits. At the Democratic convention, she says, looking up from her script, she did her live shots next to reporters who were doing traditional political coverage.
"They're talking about the foreclosure rates and I'm going, 'Michelle Obama's style -- was teal the right color?' " she says, grinning. She felt more than a little distracting. She kept apologizing to the other reporters.
* * *
It's everything: It's "Inside Edition" quoting Rudy Giuliani at the Republican convention, and it's "Entertainment Tonight's" Web site excerpting from Meghan McCain's blog. It's People magazine's Web site: "Barack Obama Reveals How He Popped the Question to Joe Biden." It's TMZ ambushing former senator Fred Thompson yesterday as if he were Hilary Duff and asking if it was a good thing that -- okay, follow this -- that Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter's boyfriend appeared onstage with the Palin family Wednesday night. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," Thompson replied. (TMZ posted footage of his non-answer, along with non-answers from Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Florida Rep. Adam Putnam under the headline "Republicans to TMZ: We Can't Hear You!")
This political entertainment mash-up had long since started when, all those eons ago, John McCain's campaign ran an ad comparing Obama to Paris Hilton, in a move to inflate his image so much it might burst. And it grew when Hilton joined the conversation with her own ad, ostensibly talking about energy policy but really talking her way into more publicity.
It's everything: It's the entertainment outlets covering Bristol Palin like she's an up-and-coming reality TV star -- and there she is, five months pregnant, in a photo gallery called "Shocking Teen Pregnancies!" on Us Weekly's Web site, alongside Spears, of course, and the deceased onetime teen mom Anna Nicole Smith.
It's the broadening of the definition of "celebrity" to mean anyone in front of a camera, which means politicians and, yes, politicians' families. And it's all those Hollywood types flocking to Obama's campaign, luring the entertainment news outlets.
"Where Oprah goes, so must we," says Rob Silverstein, the executive producer of "Access Hollywood."
It's the very fact that this presidential race has featured so many 20-something candidate kids -- which was what led Menounos to do "Nightly News" interviews with, among others, Meghan McCain, Sarah Huckabee and Cate Edwards. And it's the fact that this campaign has been historic, featuring a woman and an African American vying for the Democratic nomination, and now a woman running as the Republicans' vice-presidential nominee, and -- well, entertainment news outlets would be fools not to grab a piece.
"They are following the very discernible fact this is an election of high interest," says Jonathan Wilcox, a former Republican speechwriter who now teaches communications at the University of Southern California. Celebrity news outlets are "the businesses that are most apt to understand what people want to read."
"The Obama family in our eyes is a rock-star family," Silverstein says. "There's just something sexy about it and it sells. His back story is amazing." Add in Michelle and the two cute kids, Silverstein says, and "especially if you're going after female readers or female viewers, it's right in your strike zone."
It was Menounos who nabbed the first interview with the entire Obama nuclear family, including the candidate's young girls. Menounos says she showed up expecting to interview the candidate and his wife, and maybe briefly get the girls on camera, but bonded with Sasha and Malia over dogs and the Jonas Brothers.
The candidate caught a lot of flak after that interview -- folks accused him of exploiting his children after insisting they be left alone by the media -- and he vowed he wouldn't again allow them to be interviewed. Which was quite all right with Menounos's boss. "That interview will go down in history," Silverstein says. He says he even got a call from a competitor -- Harvey Levin of TMZ. Levin congratulated him.
There are obvious reasons to go on "Access," as Hillary Clinton and Cindy McCain have, as well as on other shows of their ilk. Candidates and their families aren't going to get policy questions. They're more likely to be asked about the softer sides of their biographies.
"What the candidates are looking for when they allow themselves to be profiled on entertainment programs is they want to establish some intimacy with their audience," says Johanna Blakley, who studies the impact of entertainment on society at USC. And "they're looking to connect with an audience that may not seek out political programming."
But it isn't just celebrity outlets moving into political coverage; it's mainstream outlets chasing celebrity stories, too. We are awash in information about the "intricate details" of public figures' lives, as Menounos points out. Politics is "a pop culture phenomenon this year," she says. So if it seems natural now that people want to know whether, say, Heidi Klum does or doesn't pump her own gas, perhaps it's just as natural they should want to know whether Obama dresses kind of dorkily when he rides his bike. (For anyone who missed those photos, he does.)
Menounos is at the nexus of all this. During the Democratic convention, she interviewed John Legend and Ben Affleck about their Obama support. Here, she does stories on Palin, whose complicated family life and rock-star speechifying gives the McCain ticket sizzle.
Menounos herself is somewhere between covering-the-red-carpet and of-the-red-carpet. But why draw such distinctions? Everyone is a celebrity. She grew up as the child of working-class Greek immigrants in Medford, Mass., and from the age of 13, she says, she knew she wanted to live in Los Angeles and work in the news world somehow. She is a former pageant contestant, and she has acted, and has done Pantene commercials. On this day, she is tended to by Bret and her hair guy, Brad, who are dressed almost identically in white shirts, with short-cropped hair and German-looking glasses. Bret fusses over her like she's about to appear onstage to pick up an Oscar.
"Can I get a tighter shot?" Bret says, when he sees Menounos's face on-screen. The camera closes in on her face. "That looks gorgeous."
LOAD-DATE: September 5, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Photos By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post; Maria Menounos prepares for her "Access Hollywood" report from the Republican National Convention. On the celebrity news show's agenda: vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin's style.
IMAGE; Menounos with "Access Hollywood" producer Steve Harding.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
Candidates use Web for cheap, edgy ads
BYLINE: By Matthew Sheffield, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: NATION; POLI-TECH; A04
DATELINE: ST. PAUL, Minn.
In the American federalist system, states have become policy proving grounds, places where ideas can be tested and elevated to the national level if proven effective - "laboratories of democracy," as Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis once put it.
Watching this year's presidential race, a similar trend appears to be emerging with the Internet.
With the Web as a medium having come into its own in the consumer space - 73 percent of Americans now regularly use it according to the Pew Internet and Public Life Project - it now seems to be developing into a useful tool for political campaigns to push new messages, gauge the sentiment of supporters and to tap into themes that resonate with the public.
This makes sense from a marketing standpoint for a variety of reasons, perhaps foremost because of the costs involved. Producing Internet videos and Web sites is astonishingly cheap, compared to creating and placing television advertisements, generally because TV stations charge large amounts of money.
Because paying for a Web site is cheaper, this also means the risk of failure is much less. If you've spent $200,000 creating an ad and intend to drop about $2 million on distributing it through prime television markets, chances are you're going to be a lot more cautious in doing it.
Caution is certainly a good thing, but too much of it isn't. That's why most politicians' ads you see on television tend to be boring, one-size-fits-all affairs that manage to say nothing while still taking up your time.
That's ironic because one of the main points behind advertising is to get the public's attention. You want the public to be talking about your ads.
This is especially true at the presidential level since the American media market is so huge that, aside from spending tens of millions, it's impossible to get the word out without assistance from journalists and bloggers voluntarily talking about your ads to their audiences.
It's a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg situation: Campaigns want the public to know about their ads, but they don't want them to be too controversial or too expensive.
Resolving this dilemma has been one of the biggest challenges in campaigns, one which the Internet appears to be helping to solve this year by allowing campaigns to create advertising that is cheap and sufficiently edgy to attract attention from the chattering class (ensuring media amplification) but also insulated enough that poor advertisements never affect the more apolitical public.
Of late, it's been the McCain presidential campaign that has been doing this more effectively. In the past month or so, the McCain camp has released several hard-hitting ads, including "The One," a spot that mocked many Democrats' overly high expectations of their presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, and his campaign's message that only he can bring the mythical "change" we so desperately need.
Since its release, the ad has been getting enormous amounts of attention all over traditional media, a great return on Sen. John McCain's initial investment.
Besides demonstrating how the Web can be cost-effective, "The One" phenomenon is illustrative of another way the Internet has become useful for the presidential campaigns: helping them spot organic political themes that they can help develop into larger ones. The inspiration behind the ad is straight out of the conservative blogosphere where it has proven enormously popular with center-right readers long dissatisfied with the elite press' love affair with Mr. Obama.
That inspiration isn't restricted to just online ads, either. Just this week, the McCain camp released an ad that looked astonishingly similar to a parody ad created by blogger Ed Driscoll, which combined Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's famous "3 AM" ad with a second segment telling viewers that Mr. McCain also could be relied upon to respond to a crisis situation.
It's highly likely this will continue to happen, Mr. Driscoll told me in an e-mail.
"While a campaign still has to spend large sums of money buying advertising time on TV, as the older generation still glued almost exclusively to the television tube begins to fade away, watch for the Web to continue to grow in power as the political advertising venue," he said.
He's exactly right. It's simply a matter of time.
* Matthew Sheffield is a Web consultant and creator of NewsBusters.org. E-mail: msheffield.times@gmail.com
LOAD-DATE: September 5, 2008
GRAPHIC: Sen. John McCain's ad "The One" appeared on Youtube.com. The McCain campaign has more effectively been using the Internet to attract attention and save money. [Photo by Youtube.com.]
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Roanoke Times (Virginia)
September 4, 2008 Thursday
Metro Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B6
John McCain doesn't have all the skills needed to be president
I admit upfront that I am not a John McCain for president supporter. I respect him, but I just cannot get behind most of his policy positions. McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin, however, as his vice presidential running mate has taken my concerns about his candidacy to a different level.
I no longer just question McCain's policies, I also seriously question his judgment. And I know my questioning his judgment is not limited to me and other Democrats. Many Republicans are also scratching their heads and asking themselves, "What was he thinking?"
I'm all for mavericks and those who think outside of the box. They are often the people who keep things moving forward in a progressive way, so stagnation and the status quo don't block healthy change. McCain's decision to choose Palin as his running mate, however, is not the act of such a person. It is a decision done more for ideological reasons and appearances than for the welfare and security of this nation.
McCain does not exhibit the sound judgment of a candidate with the necessary skills to lead the United States in dealing with the enormous challenges of the 21st century.
Kirk A. Ballin
Roanoke
McCain chose well -- for Obama
Thank you, John McCain. Thank you for making the biggest mistake of your political life in choosing someone with a résumé the size of a pamphlet to be your running mate just because she is a woman.
You've all but handed Barack Obama the White House on a silver platter.
As a woman, I am insulted that you think my vote is so easily won. Believe it or not, I vote according to the issues that are important to me, not according to the gender of the candidate. Who would be comfortable with her being next in line for the presidency?
You had your pick of combat veterans, senators and seasoned politicians with years of experience. Yet you picked the first-term governor of a state with fewer than 1 million people.
In doing so, you have obliterated one of your biggest arguments against Obama, which was that he didn't have the experience to lead the country. Try pulling that now that you've chosen someone as your vice president whose main responsibility has been leading the PTA.
Thank you, McCain. We'll be laughing all the way to the Oval Office.
Callie Robertson
Salem
Blame Bush policies, not their execution
Even dyed-in-the-wool Republicans have soured on George W. Bush. But they plan to vote for John McCain.
It seems the mess in which we find ourselves -- mired in foreign wars, foreclosures and bailouts, towering national debt and trade unbalance, astronomical oil prices and a recession scheduled to begin on Inauguration Day -- is not the result of Bush's policies. These were good policies. Unfortunately, they were incompetently executed by a callow moron whom we were misled into electing, twice.
"If we put McCain in there," say my GOP friends, "he'll get it right."
McCain, obsessed with Vietnam, has clung to this kind of thinking like a Teddy bear. It was a good and righteous war. If we had only stuck with it, we would have emerged victorious. It was Johnson's fault. The Democratic president lost the support of the American people. That pesky Tet offensive? It was a Viet Cong defeat.
Now we have the chance to do it over again, with a heroic Navy pilot at the controls.
I'm sorry. It's the policies, stupid! You can execute them right, or you can do it wrong. The result will be the same: a continuing disaster.
Norman A. Prince
Roanoke
Rasoul is trying to inform voters
How ironic that The Roanoke Times criticizes Sam Rasoul for trying to inform voters about the issues in the race for Virginia's 6th Congressional District ("Rasoul will debate himself on YouTube," Aug. 28 editorial).
Ironic, but not surprising, given your lack of coverage of the campaigns, especially compared to your daily coverage of the presidential campaigns and several-times-weekly reporting on the U.S. Senate campaign in Virginia.
Every voter in the 6th District has a larger percentage of the vote in the congressional campaign than in the other two races, making your reporting inversely proportional to the impact each voter has.
If the newspaper won't inform the public, it should at least refrain from chastising a candidate who attempts to do your job for you. Maybe it is that competition that worries you more than the need to inform your readers on the issues.
Bill Bestpitch
Roanoke
Obama's nomination was pricey propaganda
Barack Hussein Obama's coronation at the toga party in the Rocky Mountain Greek temple epitomizes the Hollywood slick marketing of liberal progressive Democrats throughout this country in the elections of 2008.
This excessively expensive, wasteful, monstrous extravaganza continues the media-created Obamamania package that is designed to mislead American people to turn over our future to a bunch of socialist elitists who promise to regulate our economy and destroy incentives for upward mobility and the American Dream.
However well-intended, this candidate is a front man offering feel-good solutions that have historically proven to be mirages. They are founded upon the discredited communist dogma of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," under which Obama and his bureaucratic hench-people will determine your and my needs.
The millions spent promoting this scam would have been better spent on the country's poorest in education, health services, housing and other life-supporting essentials. Instead, those who funded this spectacle will have great needs that will require payback and handouts. And from where will the money come? From your and my higher taxes and redistributions from our defense.
That is the change that Obama promises.
Max Beyer
Roanoke
Put the rail yard in Pulaski County
I oppose the site of a Norfolk Southern intermodal rail yard in Montgomery County. This is beautiful farmland, and we should preserve it for its proper use. Pulaski County should be the site because it can be located in an area that does not involve farmland.
I encourage everyone to write the following person to reconsider Pulaski County: Robin C. Chapman, Manager, Public Relations, Norfolk Southern Corp., Three Commercial Place, Norfolk, VA 22309.
Catherine Price Humphrey
Pulaski
Drug testing has gone too far
In competitive sports, there has been a shift from one extreme to another. Athletes are being subjected to multiple tests and harassment. They are too comprehensive, picking up anything from cough medicine, herbal remedies, cortisone and supplements to ADHD medicine.
The worst part is that these tests are interpreted subjectively. They have never been calibrated for false positive ratio. Moreover, no baselines in body chemistry have been established. For example, a positive in synthetic testosterone in men could be just a boost in natural testosterone.
Therefore, it is possible that innocent people, such as perhaps Justin Gatlin and Floyd Landis, will be falsely punished and labeled. It is also likely that a positive may be accidentally acquired. Don't athletes have the right to repair their bodies just like everyone else?
Such cases as Ben Johnson, whose yellowish eyes and bulging veins were a giveaway, or Chinese and Soviet-bloc women, whose masculinity was blatant, show the need for testing. However, testing should be limited to basic anabolic steroids in men and testosterone in women. Unless it's therapeutic, protracted drug use usually hinders rather than enhances performances.
Paranoia is a bureaucrat's dream but an athlete's and fans' nightmare.
Harsha Sankar
Covington
LOAD-DATE: September 5, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 4, 2008 Thursday
Regional Edition
In the Words of My Speechwriter . . .
SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A15
The year was 1972, and an ad in Chicago Today ("Wanted: Writers. Flexible hours.") led me to an upper floor of a building on LaSalle Street. I was 21, desperate for a job and wearing the Montgomery Ward suit I'd gotten for graduation. Before long, I was shaking hands with the president of Termpapers Inc., who hired me without bothering to look at the portfolio I brought along.
That day, I accepted orders for a 15-page paper on Bantu education in Africa and a 10-pager on the Attica prison riot. I earned $2 per page for the prison paper and $3 per page for the Bantu report, since it was for a graduate course.
Six weeks and approximately 50 term papers later, I showed up at LaSalle Street to collect another assignment, only to find a notice taped to the door: "Closed by order of the U.S. Marshal."
Government lawyers had gotten a cease-and-desist order on the basis of fraud, forgery, plagiarism and subversion of the educational system. Harvard University vowed to follow up with lawsuits against term-paper mills for breaking "an implicit educational contract" between colleges and students.
Standing before that sealed door, I was in mild shock. Yes, the work had felt nefarious at first, but I had been assured by the company president that it was all aboveboard. We writers were agreeing to let someone else use our words for fair compensation. "Just like political speechwriters," was his rationale.
Today, selling term papers to students to use as their own is still illegal, but selling speeches to politicians to use as their own remains a legitimate enterprise.
How can that be?
Consider how we react to college students who buy term papers, to author Alex Haley plagiarizing in "Roots" or to Sen. Joe Biden cribbing a few lines from a British politician in 1987. All are judged to be acting improperly because they used others' words without attribution. Yet those using the words of unacknowledged speechwriters get a free pass.
What's the difference?
The fact that the writers give permission to the speakers to pretend it's their own work does not make it okay. That's exactly what happens with term-paper mills. Just ask Jacksonville State University President William Meehan, who in 2007 was publicly embarrassed and officially denounced after it was discovered that his weekly column in a local paper had routinely been ghostwritten by the college's publicist.
Nor can second-party speechwriting be justified because it isn't journalism or scholastic scholarship. Some speechwriters have likened their profession to screenwriting, penning dialogue to be spoken by others. But in the entertainment world, the audience buys seats to witness a fiction. They know the actors don't write their own material, and authors are acknowledged in screen credits or theater programs.
When was the last time you saw or heard a writer credited at the end of a speech by John McCain or Barack Obama?
Nor can the difference be that political audiences are already aware that politicians employ speechwriters. Granted, it can be easy to determine when President Bush is reciting from someone else's script and when he is ad libbing in his own fractured English. But how can we know whether a line, or an entire speech, comes from the brains of McCain or Obama, or from hired staffers?
All those years ago, Harvard's lawyer referred to the implicit understanding between teachers and students. Isn't it even more important that there be a contract of honesty between candidates for high office and voters?
When Richard Nixon used to recite the essays of his speechwriter William Safire, you ended up knowing quite a bit about Safire and little or nothing about Nixon. Think how much more we might have known, and how history might even have been different, had Nixon spoken his mind from the start.
Can voters this year be sure they learned something about the real Sarah Palin from her GOP vice presidential nomination acceptance speech last night, considering news that it was originally written by speechwriter Matthew Scully over a week ago for an unknown male nominee? The commissioned draft was subsequently customized by Palin and a team of McCain staffers in the 48 hours leading up to its presentation.
Psychologists, composition teachers, college admissions officers and personnel directors all know that when it comes to extracting truth and character, there is no more reliable indicator than a person's original, written words. Why, then, as we watch two finalists compete for the most important job in the world, do we tolerate their lip-syncing of someone else's creation?
If contemporary political candidates cannot find time to write all their speeches, the way Teddy Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln did, they should at least craft the major ones. And when they must use speechwriters, they should credit the writer at the conclusion so the public knows the true source of the work.
David McGrath teaches English at the University of South Alabama. His e-mail address is dmcgrath@usouthal.edu
LOAD-DATE: September 4, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 4, 2008 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
A Multitude of 'My Friends';
For John McCain, a Tried-and-True Rhetorical Tic
BYLINE: Libby Copeland; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A21
John McCain is a man with many friends, and many more on the way.
"My friends," he says frequently in public appearances, to emphasize a point or buy time or forge a connection with his audience. Sometimes he says it to signal bad news he regrets having to share: "My friends, our borders are broken."
Other times, he uses it to make a vow. "If I'm president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama bin Laden," he announced last month at the Saddleback Church forum.
McCain's journey through the primaries was one big friend-fest, with town halls in which he'd use those two words upwards of 20 times.
"Any impersonation of John McCain these days begins with 'my friends,' " says Cary Pfeffer, a communications consultant in Phoenix who covered McCain as a TV reporter in the late '80s and early '90s. "Friends know that I covered him . . . so every once in a while I'll pick up a message and it'll be someone saying, 'my friends.' "
McCain's longtime aide Mark Salter says he's become so familiar with the senator's precise speech patterns that when he writes McCain's addresses, "I just kind of naturally know where the 'my friends' will go and I'll write 'em in." (And if he doesn't write them in, Salter says, McCain says them anyway, and those two words show up exactly "where I thought they'd be.")
Now that all of John McCain's friends have come together in St. Paul to watch his acceptance tonight of the Republican nomination, it seems useful to call up an old friend -- a real one, as opposed to a rhetorical one -- and ask what he thinks of McCain's favorite phrase.
"I definitely take absolutely no credit for 'my friends,' " says Grant Woods. In fact, "I want to separate myself from anything to do with 'my friends.' " Woods, who worked as chief of staff and adviser to McCain during the 1980s and is now a supporter of the campaign, is like the many McCain observers who occasionally experience my-friends overload. As he puts it, "I think it's a good phrase -- used minimally."
"My friends" is a window into McCain's rhetorical style, which -- as has been written ad nauseam -- is better suited to intimate events than the massive rallies that the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, prefers. McCain prefers conversations to speeches. When he says "my friends," he is trying to "form a personal connection with the people in the audience," says Dan Schnur, who served as the senator's communications director during his 2000 presidential run.
At least, some of the time he is.
"It's like 'aloha' in Hawaiian or 'shalom' in Hebrew -- 'my friends' can mean a lot of different things under different circumstances," Schnur says. "When he uses it one-on-one in conversation or to refer to a specific person, it takes on a much different meaning. Because in one-on-one interactions, the last thing you want from John McCain is a compliment. When John McCain likes you, he insults you."
The use of "my friends" is not uncommon in political discourse, especially for members of Congress, who spend their days paying homage to colleagues with such phrases as "my esteemed friend from Wisconsin." "My friends" is not partisan. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are fond of its sweeping statesmanishness. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the former Democrat from Connecticut who became an Independent and has campaigned extensively with McCain, is a major proponent of those two words, which might explain why he and the Arizona senator share such a bond. (Lieberman's Tuesday night convention speech tally: "friends," "my friends" or the even chummier "dear friends": 11.)
"You know what drives me crazy about McCain?" Bill O'Reilly asked on the air in August. "When he says 'my friends.' . . . If somebody says that to you, 'my friend,' it sounds condescending. You don't know me. You know?"
"If somebody turned the 'my friends' thing into a drinking game," replied his guest, Dennis Miller, "it would have killed Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton."
In fact, somebody has turned the phrase into a drinking game, although The Washington Post does not recommend playing it. The Post does not endorse anything that might cause alcohol poisoning. The day after O'Reilly's remarks, McCain achieved what may have been a personal best at a town hall gathering in Lima, Ohio, using the phrase or some variation exactly 30 times.
"My friends, just like on the energy bill, I've argued for reform and change in Washington for years," he told the crowd. "And it hasn't made me friends. It hasn't made me friends in Washington. My friends, I was not elected Miss Congeniality again this year."
For the way it conveys the air of a learned elder, McCain's favorite phrase can remind his listeners of those dads on '60s sitcoms, the ones who called their sons "son." (Incidentally, McCain's own father, Jack, a four-star admiral in the U.S. Navy, was fond of using "my friend" to punctuate a point, according to a Washington Post profile.)
People who study the words that politicians use are split on whether it works for McCain or comes off as creaky.
"It comes out from him in a way that -- at least to me -- comes across as sincere," says John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University, who suggests the phrase reinforces McCain's accessibility. "You could see going up to shake his hand, maybe give him a brief hug."
"It reads as an age marker, because I don't think anybody under the age of 50 has ever used the term," says Roderick Hart, the dean of the college of communication at the University of Texas at Austin.
In some cases, says J. Brian Smith, a consultant on many of McCain's congressional races, "my friends" functions as a mere rhetorical tic, giving McCain a moment to gather his thoughts. You know, the way Ronald Reagan used to say "Well . . . ."
Obama, who frequently uses the professorial finger-on-temple stance when listening, has his own rhetorical tics when talking, including "uh," which appears to serve as a stalling tactic. He also does a little rhetorical dance, Hart says.
"I'm still trying to get used to Obama's speech patterns," he says. "I find them for the most part really quite formal or really informal. There's no middle ground."
McCain, on the other hand, uses "my friends" in loads of settings; it's only the meaning that changes.
"Sometimes he says it and he means it, and sometimes he means quite the opposite," says Pfeffer, the former TV reporter. When it's the latter, "it can come with him almost gritting teeth when he's saying it."
"It's important to draw a distinction between 'my friends' and 'my dear friends' and 'my dear, dear friends,' " suggests Schnur. "I remember, at one point in 2000, him referring to a newspaper reporter who had just done a very critical story as 'my dear, dear friend,' " he says. "The only other time I heard him use that was with Mitt Romney."
One thing that can be said about "my friends": for a candidate who prides himself on authenticity, the phrase seems truly to belong to John McCain. It does not read as something pretested, as the programmed stuff of presidential oratory.
"He's actually very hip in many ways," says his old friend Woods. (For instance, Woods says, McCain just adored "Borat.") "He has his old-school ways, and some of his phrases are old school. And that's okay, that's him."
Back in the '80s, Woods says, he tried to talk McCain out of his habit of using "pal" when he ran into someone whose name he couldn't remember.
Woods recalls: "I said, 'Look, this pal . . . it's like Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly and "Anchors Aweigh." No one says "pal." ' And his response, basically, was, 'Thanks for the input, pal.' "
LOAD-DATE: September 4, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Skip Peterson -- Associated Press; McCain, pictured in Ohio last month, uses "my friends" to "form a personal connection with the people in the audience," says Dan Schnur, the senator's former communications director.
IMAGE; By Mary Altaffer -- Associated Press; John McCain after a town hall meeting last month in Lima, Ohio, when he used "my friends" 30 times during his talk.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 4, 2008 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
Palin Comes Out Fighting;
GOP Nominates McCain After Running Mate Attacks Obama on Experience
BYLINE: Michael D. Shear; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
DATELINE: ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 3
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin electrified the Republican convention Wednesday night, pitching herself as a champion of government reform, mocking Democratic candidate Barack Obama as an elitist and belittling media criticism of her experience.
In a speech that served as her introduction to most of the nation after Sen. John McCain's surprise decision to pick her as his vice presidential running mate, Palin pitched herself as the product of small-town America and laced her address with sarcastic digs at Sen. Obama. She said it is his experience, not hers, that is lacking, and she embraced the role of leading the attack against the Democratic ticket.
"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities," she deadpanned. "I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening."
Palin, who would be the first woman elected to the vice presidency, said she will ignore the "Washington elite" who do not consider her qualified for the post, and she served notice that she will not wilt in the face of critical coverage that followed McCain's announcement.
"Here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators," she told the convention delegates, who wagged their fingers toward the arena's media boxes as she delivered the punch line. "I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion -- I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country."
The 44-year-old wife and mother of five was greeted with thunderous applause after a fiery and rousing introduction by former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who called her a woman "who has no fear" and added: "This is a woman who stands up for what's right."
Palin focused on almost every tactical misstep Obama's campaign has made, painting a caricature of the Democrat as an out-of-touch elitist and a lightweight celebrity with no sense of what matters to average Americans.
"We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco," she said. Mocking the speech in which Obama accepted the Democratic nomination before a crowd of more than 84,000 at a Denver football stadium, she asked: "When the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot, what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?"
She leaned heavily on her own biography, introducing her husband, Todd, as a commercial fisherman, a union member, a world-champion snowmobile racer and an Eskimo. She described herself as a mom-turned-politician with the "same challenges and the same joys" as other families.
She also offered at least one apparent ad-lib: "The difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?" she asked. "Lipstick."
Palin pledged that she would join McCain in a crusade for change, promising to "govern with integrity, goodwill, clear convictions, and . . . a servant's heart." And she praised McCain's character, making it clear that Obama has not served his country the way McCain has.
"It's a long way from the fear and pain and squalor of a 6-by-4 cell in Hanoi to the Oval Office," she said of McCain's time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. "But if Senator McCain is elected president, that is the journey he will have made."
McCain appeared onstage briefly after her speech, declaring her the "next vice president of the United States" before a screaming crowd. He is scheduled to appear Thursday evening to accept the party's presidential nomination, a victory that has taken almost a decade. Delegates awarded him the nomination in a roll call of states after Palin's speech.
For all of Palin's charm, however, it was three men who had tried to deny McCain that nomination who first delivered the searing attacks on liberalism, the media and Obama that the conservative crowd desperately craved.
Giuliani brought delegates to their feet repeatedly, turning out an energetic, biting assault on Obama's candidacy, mocking the Democrat as an inexperienced, overly ambitious, flip-flopping politician.
The former mayor could barely get through his speech as he described Obama's experience, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Obama worked as a community organizer, he told the crowd, before heading for the Illinois legislature.
"Where nearly 130 times he couldn't make a decision. He couldn't figure out whether to vote yes or no. It was too tough. He voted present," Giuliani intoned with mock surprise. "I didn't know about this vote -- present -- when I was mayor of New York City. For president of the United States, it's not good enough to be present. You have to make a decision."
Mocking Obama's change of position on Jerusalem, Giuliani said: "I hope for his sake, Joe Biden got that VP thing in writing."
Referring to Democratic questions about Palin's qualifications, Giuliani added: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that Barack Obama feels that her home town isn't cosmopolitan enough. I'm sorry, Barack, that it's not flashy enough. Maybe they cling to religion there."
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney -- McCain's chief nemesis throughout the GOP primary campaign -- repeatedly tapped into delegates' palpable anger about what many consider to be unfair coverage of their vice presidential nominee.
"For decades, the Washington sun has been rising in the East," home to "the Eastern elites, to the editorial pages of the Times and The Post," he said. "If America really wants change, it's time to look for the sun in the West, 'cause it's about to rise and shine from Arizona and Alaska."
The crowd erupted in applause, as it did again when Romney vowed to "stop the spread of government dependency to fight it like the poison it is. It's time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother."
Romney was followed by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who employed his trademark wit to deride Obama's foreign policy judgment and reject Democratic attacks on the GOP as the party of the wealthy.
"I really tire of hearing how the Democrats care about the working guy as if all Republicans grew up with silk stockings and silver spoons," he said, bringing delegates to their feet. "In my little home town of Hope, Arkansas, the three sacred heroes were Jesus, Elvis and FDR, not necessarily in that order."
Using some of the toughest language of the night, Huckabee predicted that Obama would "continue to give madmen the benefit of the doubt. If he's wrong just once, we will pay a heavy price."
McCain "will follow the fanatics to their caves in Pakistan or to the gates of hell," he said. "What Obama wants to do is give them a place setting at the table."
Anticipating the importance of Palin's debut before a national audience, McCain speechwriter Matthew Scully spent days working on the speech, and she rehearsed it repeatedly as McCain aides offered coaching. Before she delivered it, they began an all-out effort to defend her and take the offensive against her critics, mobilizing surrogates to tell her story and accusing journalists of creating a "faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee."
Earlier, Palin greeted McCain as he arrived in Minnesota, and the two posed for photographers on the tarmac with their families, a gathering that included a dozen children -- her five and his seven. Joining them was Levi Johnston, 18, the fiance of Palin's daughter Bristol and the father of the baby she is due to deliver in December, who had flown in from Alaska. McCain hugged Bristol and spoke to her at length, then greeted Johnston before putting his arms around both of them. The McCain family then went to the Minneapolis Convention Center to help pack hurricane relief supplies.
McCain campaign officials pushed back aggressively against media coverage of both Gov. Palin's background and Bristol Palin's pregnancy, declaring in a statement early Wednesday that they would no longer discuss how well or poorly they had vetted Palin's record.
"This nonsense is over. It is time to begin the debate about how to win the two wars this country is engaged in; how to make this country energy-independent; and how to create jobs for American families that are hurting," senior adviser Steve Schmidt wrote. "The American people get to do the vetting now on Election Day -- November 4th."
McCain also released a television ad titled "Alaska's Maverick" on Wednesday, touting Palin an "agent of reform." And a late-afternoon statement by the campaign took an unusual step by decrying the "smearing of the Palin family" and calling allegations in the tabloid National Enquirer that Palin had an affair "a vicious lie."
Staff writers Robert Barnes and Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: September 4, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post; After accepting the Republican vice presidential nomination, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is joined onstage at the Xcel Energy Center by Sen. John McCain and members of her family, including, from left, daughter Bristol's fiance, Levi Johnston; daughters Willow and Piper; and husband Todd, holding 4-month-old son Trig.
IMAGE; By Toni L. Sandys -- The Washington Post; Delegates cheer during Sarah Palin's speech to the gathering. The Alaska governor was greeted by thunderous applause.
IMAGE; By Toni L. Sandys -- The Washington Post; Sen. John McCain's wife, Cindy, with Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, rocks the Palins' 4-month-old son, Trig.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
September 4, 2008 Thursday
Palin takes on 'Washington elite';
Governor accepts historic nomination
BYLINE: By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
DATELINE: ST. PAUL, Minn.
Her prime-time moment arrived, Republican presumptive vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin introduced herself to the nation Wednesday night as a feisty small-town mayor turned governor who was more qualified than Democrat Barack Obama to serve in the White House and more willing to challenge "Washington's elite."
Mrs. Palin said she would accept her historic nomination as the first woman on a Republican ticket and wasted no time challenging critics in the media who have picked at her record, her family and her qualifications since John McCain selected her Friday.
"Here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country," she told the Republican National Convention, drawing loud boos at the mere mention of the press.
She also showed she could punch with the political brawlers, belittling Mr. Obama's campaign as a "journey of personal discovery" and contrasting her path from PTA mom and city council member to Mr. Obama's start as a community organizer in Chicago.
"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities," she said During her 40-minute address, Mrs. Palin moved comfortably from storytelling hockey mom to red-meat political attacker. She flashed tenderness when she blew a kiss to a former prisoner of war in the crowd, then drilled into the policy details highlighting the dangers of Russian aggression in an oil-dependent world. Ans when she finished, leaving the crowd roaring on its feet, she comfortably picked up her 5-month-old baby and stood with her family to soak in the moment.
"Don't you think I've made the right choice?" Mr. McCain said in a brief appearance at the end of the night.
Mrs. Palin's address was the pinnacle of a day in which Mr. McCain warmly embraced Mrs. Palin's 17-year-old pregnant daughter and her soon-to-be-husband before cameras and the campaign said it would no longer answer questions about her family life.
The campaign also began to go on offense, with surrogates both before and during the convention night activities saying the questions about Mrs. Palin are unfair.
"Sarah Palin has enough time to spend with her children and be vice president. How dare they?" said former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who presented a key speech introducing Mrs. Palin. "When do they ever ask a man that question?"
Republican women called press reports about Mrs. Palin an "outrageous smear campaign," and Mr. McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, accused reporters of treating Mrs. Palin badly because they were angry that the McCain campaign had been able to keep her nomination a surprise.
"What I think is the press is really disappointed they couldn't figure out who it was in advance," he said.
The campaign also announced a commercial stacking up the credentials of Mrs. Palin against those of Mr. Obama, calling her a reformer and him "the Senate's 'most liberal.'[TFI]"
Democrats said they expected an impressive performance from the governor, but said she won't do anything to change the policies of President Bush.
"The speech that Governor Palin was well-delivered, but it was written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.
Earlier in the day, Obama campaign aide Robert Gibbs told reporters that Mrs. Palin wouldn't change the election.
"It doesn't make a ton of difference who that second name is on the bumper sticker," he said.
Before Mrs. Palin took the stage, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Mr. Giuliani - all one-time challengers to Mr. McCain - spoke, and the jousting for leadership of the conservative movement was apparent.
Mr. Giuliani accused Mr. Obama of flip-flopping on undocumented wiretapping and on taking public financing for his campaign and blasted the Democrat for repeatedly ducking tough votes in his time in the Illinois Senate - "nearly 130 times he was unable to make a decision yes or no. It was too tough. He simply voted 'present.'[TFI]"
"" I didn't know about this vote 'present' when I was mayor of New York City. Sarah Palin didn't have this vote 'present' when she was mayor or governor. ... For president of the United States, it's not good enough to be present You have to make a decision," he said.
The man who earned the nickname "America's mayor" after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks said Mr. Obama has "never had to lead people in crisis."
"This is not a personal attack, it's a statement of fact - Barack Obama has never led anything. Nothing. Nada," he said.
Speaking earlier, Mr. Romney delivered what amounted to a manifesto of party governance, saying the Republican Party needs to combat "pornography, promiscuity and drugs" and fight for families with a father and a mother. He said liberalism has been in control in Washington for the past three decades.
"It is time to stop the spread of government dependency, to fight it like the poison it is," he said.
Mr. Huckabee brought his particular brand of populist conservatism to the stage, saying he understands those hoping for change this election in the face of high gas prices and housing problems.
"I'm not a Republican because I grew up rich, but because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to rescue me," said the former Southern Baptist pastor, who easily mixed jokes with harsh barbs against Mr. Obama.
"Barack Obama's excellent adventure to Europe took his campaign for change to hundreds of thousands of people who don't even vote or pay taxes here," Mr. Huckabee said. "It's not what he took there that concerns me. It's what he brought back - lots of ideas from Europe he'd like to see imported here."
Democrats attacked the surrogates, accusing Mr. Giuliani, for example, of being a poor messenger for reform because of charges of cronyism that popped up during his time as mayor.
Mr. McCain was to be officially nominated by his party in a roll-call vote late Wednesday and will address the convention on Thursday. Mrs. Palin also will be officially nominated Thursday.
But Mrs. Palin's speech may overshadow even Mr. McCain's performance, with Republicans saying it was the most important event of the four-day convention - a chance, for better or worse, to set the conventional wisdom on her for the rest of the campaign.
Her challenge was to introduce herself to a curious nation while still fulfilling the traditional booster role the No. 2 slot requires.
She took to the role, slamming Mr. Obama and his running mate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. for saying they're fighting for Americans.
"Let us face the matter squarely. There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you, in places where winning means survival and defeat means death, and that man is John McCain," said Mrs. Palin, whose 19-year-old son will be deployed to Iraq on Sept. 11.
She had the audience on its feet repeatedly.
"Amazing. Brilliant choice, spot on, everything we expected her to be," said Chris Daniel, a delegate from Texas who said she "put it right to Biden and Obama."
While Tuesday night's session of the convention focused on Mr. McCain's biography, Wednesday was more substantive, and taxes were at the forefront of the discussion.
Among the speakers, Republicans featured Christy Swanson, who with her husband owns a small business in Virginia filtering vegetable oils and reprocessing the waste to make biodiesel fuel. She was an Obama supporter until she heard Mr. McCain speak three months ago.
She said Mr. Obama's tax plan, which would raise taxes on upper-income families, and therefore on many small businesses, would hurt.
"Quite frankly, higher taxes scare the biodiesel out of me," she said.
Republicans also hit on energy, calling for an all-of-the-above energy policy that would include expanded drilling.
"Drill, baby, drill, and drill now," former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele said.
Still, nobody mentioned the tricky issue of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Mrs. Palin supports but Mr. McCain opposes.
* James Armstrong contributed to this article.
LOAD-DATE: September 4, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
September 3, 2008 Wednesday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Unwinnable contest on public character
Nobody's perfect is an adage as true for politicians as it is for the rest of us. Perhaps truer. It's true for a presumptuous Barack Obama, for a prickly John McCain, for a glib Joe Biden. And it's true for the newest member of the presidential quartet, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Nobody outside Alaska knew Palin before she took an Ohio stage Friday. So in the days since McCain introduced her as his vice presidential nominee, her scant imperfections have been emerging fast, making her party's supporters furious.
"The media doesn't understand life membership in the NRA; they don't understand getting up at 3 a.m. to hunt a moose; they don't understand eating a mooseburger; they don't understand being married to a guy who likes to snowmobile for fun," Florida Rep. Adam Putnam told the Politico Web site. "I am not surprised that they don't get it. But Americans get it."
What Americans don't get, actually, is why guys like Putnam perpetuate a notion that candidates must be somehow flawless, and that those who don't acknowledge that perfection have ulterior motives.
Lives are messy things, filled with our own bad judgment and character flaws, with spouses who do things we wish they didn't, with kids who make mistakes, with friends who turn out to be rogues or worse.
Few of us, thankfully, have Bill O'Reilly blustering about those blunders each night or have DailyKos posters spreading rumors about our children. Few of us have snoops checking our resumes for accuracy and adequacy, but each of us has gossips and tattlers trying to do their own mischief.
Lasting damage comes only if such people are allowed to succeed -- if they turn mistakes into defining characteristics. If they succeed in distracting us from what matters. So far, at least, not one of the four people at the top of the nation's presidential ballot has an incapacitating scandal in his or her past. None of them is so deficient as to be disqualified.
That's unlikely to quell the chatter about Palin's brief membership, last century, in a secessionist Alaska political party; or Obama's connection with a one-time violent radical years ago; or the circumstances surrounding McCain's marriages; or Biden's appropriation, decades ago, of another politician's words.
Too many commercials, after all, can be bought and sold around America's prurient fascination with such things. But they come to the detriment of the real and necessary debate over issues of actual importance: the flagging economy, the dysfunctional health insurance system, the war in Iraq, energy independence.
Instead, over the next week, endless hours will be spent measuring each one against an impossible yardstick for personal rectitude. Are we now a nation that demands people without blemish -- of deed or character? Our flaws, after all, make us interesting, so why shouldn't they make politicians worth having a beer with, to use the standard of the last few presidential elections. Mistakes are simply part of life.
If we do our jobs as human beings, we learn from them. We move on. We grow. We get better. If we let them, so do our politicians.
LOAD-DATE: September 3, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 3, 2008 Wednesday
Met 2 Edition
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A27
COURTING JEWISH VOTERS
Biden Cites Obama's Support of Israel
DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. -- Joseph Biden called himself a "zadie" (grandfather) and emphasized the importance of "mishpuchah" (family) as he touted himself and the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, as strong allies of Israel and the American Jewish community in a speech Tuesday.
Although polls show more than 60 percent of Jewish voters backing Obama, the campaign has worried that viral e-mails falsely asserting Obama is a Muslim and some sermons by Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, could dampen enthusiasm for the senator from Illinois.
Biden was introduced by a child of Holocaust survivors. The running mate emphasized his personal links to the late Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor who became a congressman from California. Lantos, who died this year, had served as a foreign policy aide to Biden before running for office.
Biden noted that his son's mother-in-law is Jewish and that the stepfather of one of his top foreign policy advisers was a Holocaust survivor. Biden talked about his first trip abroad as a senator, on which he met Golda Meir when she was prime minister of Israel. And he invoked several Yiddish terms to connect with an audience that included many older Jewish voters.
"I want to remind those of you who don't know me -- and those of you who do know me -- what my record has been. It has been unstinting in the defense and support of Israel," Biden told a crowd of several hundred at the Century Village retirement community.
Referring to the "scurrilous stuff going on in the Internet" about Obama, Biden said, "I promise you, the stuff you're getting on the Internet is simply not true."
"Not enough people know about Barack," Biden continued. "I promise you, Barack Obama, this man understands what is the driving energy in our community."
He went on to say, "Israel today is less secure than it was eight years ago."
"I promise you, we will make it more secure," Biden said to loud applause.
-- Perry Bacon Jr.
HOTEL ROOM ADS
Progressive Group Has Its Say
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Campaign for America's Future, a political organization that champions Democratic and progressive causes, is airing a TV ad this week that "thanks" conservatives and Republicans for the past eight years and promises, "We'll take it from here."
To the tune of "Thanks for the Memories," images of flood-ravaged post-Katrina New Orleans, gas-pump price dials, a foreclosure sign on a front lawn and President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner flash onscreen.
The ad started airing Sunday night in 365,000 hotel rooms nationwide -- including 5,000 in the Twin Cities area -- on the Hotel Networks, an in-room TV service used by hotel chains. (It's the channel offering pay-per-view movies that often air when you turn on a hotel room TV.)
The group said it wanted to make an ad buy for Twin Cities-area hotels only but could make only a nationwide buy.
-- Ed O'Keefe
ALASKA VETO
Palin Slashed Funding To Help Teenage Mothers
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, used her line-item veto this year to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.
After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Writing her initials on the legislation, Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House provides programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.
According to the Passage House Web site, its purpose is to provide "young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives" and help them "become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families."
John McCain opposed funding to prevent teen pregnancies, a position that Palin also took as governor. "The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support," she wrote in a 2006 questionnaire distributed among gubernatorial candidates.
It also emerged yesterday that Palin and her husband, Todd, each held a 20 percent stake in an Anchorage carwash that ran into trouble with Alaska's Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing after she became governor in 2006, according to state records.
A Feb. 11, 2007, letter to the governor's business partner advises that the carwash had "not filed its biennial report and/or paid its biennial fees," which were more than a year overdue. The warning was issued on state letterhead, which carried Palin's name at the top, next to the state seal.
On April 3, 2007, the state went further and issued a "certificate of involuntary dissolution" because of the carwash's failure to file its report and pay state licensing fees.
-- Paul Kane, Matthew Mosk and the Associated Press
LOAD-DATE: September 3, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; By Susan Biddle -- The Washington Post; Vice presidential nominee Joseph Biden, shown last week in Denver, told an audience at a Florida retirement community that he and Barack Obama are strong allies of Israel.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Post
September 3, 2008 Wednesday
Met 2 Edition
The Spirit of $17.76;
Thousands of Ron Paul Supporters Are Happy to Pay a Price for His Own Grand Old Party
BYLINE: Libby Copeland; Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A21
DATELINE: MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 2
All day long, the crowd grows. It is thick with tricorn hats. A singer does a sound check of something called "The Ron Paul Song." The chorus goes "Ron! Paul! Ron! Paul!" A woman comes out and gives the invocation. She says, "Thank you, dear Heavenly Father, for Dr. Ron Paul."
The crowd cheers and waits for its man.
Up in the stands here at Target Center, a woman in Colonial costume is holding a hot dog. Her husband is wearing breeches and a lace collar, and her daughters are wearing lacy mobcaps. It's like the 1700s, sort of, except for the lights and the microphones and the concrete stands and the video screen. The woman, whose name is Charity Davis, says she believes in home schooling and small government and Ron Paul. She says her family would qualify for food stamps but they won't take 'em -- won't take a piece of that welfare state.
She is waiting for her man.
Ditto the kids who took the buses from -- well, God knows where they took the buses from. All over the place. The Paul kids are devoted. They'll sleep in YMCA camps and go without showers for him. (Everyone must sacrifice.) They call the buses the Ronvoys.
"What is there not to like about Ron Paul?" asks Emilie Eggleston, 24, a college student who took a Ronvoy from Austin. "I didn't know a whole lot about the gold standard," she recalls, but then she discovered Paul. She looked up his speeches from the old days: The guy hasn't changed his positions. That's integrity, she says. "He's my man!"
Forget that other convention. The Republicans wouldn't let Paul speak, so Paul decided to throw his own party, called the "Rally for the Republic." He invited speakers: conservative commentator Tucker Carlson to emcee, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura to excite the crowd. Paul got Grover Norquist to talk about taxes and John McManus of the John Birch Society to talk about problems like "illegals." Paul sold 10,000 tickets at the liberty-loving price of $17.76 each.
And the supporters have come: young and old, hip and nerdy, talking mostly about their favorite topic, libertarian economic theory. They are utterly enthralled by a slight Republican congressman from Texas who sounds like Jimmy Stewart, a man who ran for president and failed and talks about the past and looks every inch his age. Which is . . .
"I just had a birthday," Paul says during a brief interview backstage. "What year is this?" He mulls the question. "I'm 73," he concludes.
But they haven't seen him yet. All day, they wait and cheer and take to their feet to shout "End the Fed! End the Fed!" Copies of a newspaper called USA Tomorrow are strewn about. Top headlines: "McCain's Mob Connections 'Swept' " and "Obama's Communist 'Cover-Up' Continues." An ad in the event program reads: "Say Goodbye to the IRS NOW!"
They wait as speakers talk about what's gone wrong with the nation. As Barb Davis White, who is running for Congress in Minnesota, says she's campaigning against "liberalism, fascism and socialism" and hopes one day "we can send the Fairness Doctrine back to the pits of Hell where it was born." As libertarian Lew Rockwell talks about gas prices and President Bush's "dangerous, Messianic" ambition. As Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus talks about the threat from the United Nations and the travesty of the "War of Northern Aggression."
The speakers talk about John McCain (booo) and about "Barack Hussein Obama" (more booo). They talk about "the Austrian theory of the business cycle." (Huge cheers.) They talk of how the Constitution has been trampled on.
"Dictatorship!" cries a man near the stage.
Meanwhile, backstage, at precisely 5:15 p.m. Central time, the gate above the loading dock opens and a white van drives past. Ron Paul is on the premises. He's in the passenger seat and looks as if he might be napping.
If he seems an unlikely vessel for so many hopes, Paul has one thing few in public life possess: nearly pure ideological consistency. In Congress, the OB-GYN is known as Dr. No. He's so old school that he's 18th-century old school. He doesn't like the federal government having power -- not over drugs, not over food, not over the environment, not over schools, not over citizens' money. He doesn't believe in Medicare and he doesn't believe in Social Security. He believes fervently in the free market.
During his presidential run, Paul attracted considerable amounts of money and support for his tiny operation, and maintained that he represented the true roots of the Republican Party, which might explain why he is persona non grata at the convention, which is going on in the other of the Twin Cities. (As one rally speaker puts it, "John McCain will be in St. Paul, but Saint Paul will be in Minneapolis!") During a news conference and a subsequent interview, Paul says he was given a "second-class" floor pass and was told that if he wanted to walk around on the floor, he'd be chaperoned. "It makes them look bad," he says of the convention officials, and adds that he hasn't yet decided if he'll visit the arena at all.
He doesn't seem too upset, though. He talks about balancing the budget and about how people have been writing songs for him about the Federal Reserve. He says, "One of the most exciting issues that we talk about with young people is monetary policy!" He says he's going to be on "The Colbert Report" soon.
As it gets later in the evening, the crowd gets more excited. Audience members toss "RON" balloons. When, at last, Paul walks to the podium, the applause is thunderous. He seems startled by a cloud of confetti exploding nearby.
"This is very amazing," he says, grinning in a grandfatherly way. He talks about how much better things were in the 1950s and then he gets into the meat of all that's bad with the nation. He says "even a 1 percent income tax is morally wrong." He warns of "dictatorship" and of "power gravitating to international governments" and a "new world order."
And then he starts in on the Federal Reserve. The crowd -- it just goes wild.
LOAD-DATE: September 3, 2008
GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Photos By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post; "Rally for the Republic," held at the Target Center in Minneapolis at the same time as the Republican convention in St. Paul, has drawn a crowd in support of onetime presidential candidate Ron Paul.
IMAGE; Minnesotan Gary Lentz, above, and Coloradan John Weins await an appearance by Paul, denied a speaking slot in St. Paul.
IMAGE
IMAGE; By Keith Bedford -- Bloomberg News; "This is very amazing": Not invited to speak at the convention, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) greets attendees at his "Rally for the Republic" in Minneapolis.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
September 3, 2008 Wednesday
Pollster: Gift cards are GOP's best bet
BYLINE: THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION; NOTEBOOK; A22
Virginia delegates here this morning heard perhaps one of the more unique and offbeat strategies for propelling Sen. John McCain to the presidency.
Republicans can keep young voters who support Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama at home by giving their young relatives and friends gift cards to iTunes and Starbucks that are good only on Election Day, Nov. 4.
"That's the only way to keep them away from the polls," said Kellyanne Conway, president of the Polling Company, during a breakfast with the delegates at their hotel near the University of Minnesota.
Mrs. Conway told the delegates that Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, can only win if young voters stay home as they usually do in elections.
In other national and statewide races, Republicans "will get their clocks cleaned up and down the ticket," Mrs. Conway said.
- Jon Ward
Straight-talk attraction
The plane is suddenly full.
That's the Straight Talk Express, the one ferrying Sen. John McCain from city to city, event to event, across the country.
A year ago, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was humping it through airports carrying his own bag as he flew commercial. "The most coveted ticket now is to travel around with John; back then, it was an easy ticket," longtime friend Sen. Lindsey Graham told this reporter a while back
The press corps rides in the back of the 737, emblazoned with the McCain emblem. A few months ago, the plane was half empty, with reporters enjoying a full row to themselves. Now, they sit six across, usually with bags piled up because the overhead compartments are packed with TV equipment.
The plane has a homey feel. Reporters and TV crews have stuck up dozens of photos from stops across the country - a shot of Mr. McCain and former President George H.W. Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine; a picture of staff and press on a Gulf Coast oil rig; a photo of reporters with an eerily lit Mount Rushmore in the background. Stickers line the wall: One says "Tough? You Want Tough? I Travel With John McCain." Another says: "McCain Summer Fun Tour."
- Joseph Curl
Bipartisan rage
Don't accuse Rage Against the Machine of showing preferential treatment.
The rap-rockers known for political anthems like "Killing in the Name" and "Bulls on Parade" played to an estimated crowd of 9,000 last week in Denver during the Democratic National Convention. The show was sponsored by Tent State University and Iraq Veterans Against the War.
But seemingly not wanting to direct their angst simply toward Democrats, the group - whose lead singer Zack de la Rocha made familiar waves last year by declaring that the Bush administration contained war criminals who should be "hung, and tried and shot" - will be playing a show during the Republican National Convention at the Target Center in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
The group's guitarist, Tom Morello, also was expected to provide an extra dose of anti-Republican sentiment during a Monday performance at the Take Back Labor Day Festival sponsored by the Service Employees International Union at Harriet Island Regional Park.
- Gary Emerling
* Items ran during the day at The Washington Times blog Trail Times (www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/trail-times), featuring dispatches from reporters and editors in Minnesota.
LOAD-DATE: September 3, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
September 3, 2008 Wednesday
BYLINE: By Greg Pierce, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION; INSIDE POLITICS; A24
MR. LUNCH BUCKET
"Since Joe Biden landed on the Democratic ticket, we've all been treated to commentary attesting to the Lincolnesque rise of this proud son of Scranton, Pa.," writes Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn.
"Here we read the references to 'working-class roots.' There we see a headline trumpeting a 'blue-collar messenger.' And everywhere we turn, we bump into the most treasured compound-adjective of them all: lunch bucket," Mr. McGurn said.
"The New York Times started it off with a column hailing this 'lunch-bucket Democrat.' The Boston Globe adds ethnicity, writing about 'an Irish Catholic lunch-bucket Democrat.' The Dallas Morning News emphasizes personality, celebrating a 'gregarious lunch bucket Democrat' - to distinguish him, evidently, from the nongregarious variety. The Economist contributes virtue, characterizing Sen. Biden as 'a perfect example of a lunch bucket Democrat made good.' And on it goes, with everyone from The Washington Post and Huffington Post to the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and the Associated Press serving up allusions to the senator's lunch bucket. ...
"Only in a place as removed from reality as the Beltway could a man who has
spent more than three decades in the United States Senate be hailed as a working-class stiff ...
"The Senate disclosure forms do not require Mr Biden to report his primary residence (or his federal pension). So I asked Jim Bowers - an old college roommate of mine who also lives in Delaware, who also went to the same high school, and who is also running for election. 'Not many lunch buckets up Joe's way,' says Mr. Bowers, a Republican seeking a seat in Delaware's House of Representatives. 'You have to remember that the senator lives in an area known as chateau country."
ODIOUS INSTINCTS
"I was unsure how the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's daughter would affect social conservatives' view of the governor's nomination for VP, but they seem to be taking it in their stride," Clive Crook writes at theatlantic.com.
"If anything they are seeing it as a positive - more proof that Mrs. Palin is a good and supportive mother. At any rate, they say, it is nobody's business but the family's.
"The other good news for the McCain campaign is that many Democrats are mishandling the issue as badly as they mishandled the nomination in the first place. There is a tone of exultation over the Palin family's difficulties that will strike many centrists, and decent people regardless of ideology, as repellent," Mr. Crook said.
He added: "While I am complaining about the odious instincts of my profession, let me mention in passing the bid that Campbell Brown is making to supplant Lou Dobbs as the most objectionable broadcast bloviator, thereby securing the top two slots for CNN's 'best political team on television.'
"On Sunday I watched amazed as her supposed interview of a McCain spokesman on the Palin pick degenerated into a laughing, contemptuous harangue. Her evident disgust at the choice was not to be appeased.
"Then on Monday she demanded of another McCain surrogate to know whether Palin could be a good mother since she had knowingly thrust her daughter into the spotlight. But who, for heaven's sake, is directing that spotlight? This is like the mugger who tells his victim he regrets what's happening, 'but why were you so stupid as to walk up this dark alley?' Others might be entitled to make that point, but it is nauseating to hear it from the regretful self-righteous mugger herself."
THOSE SNEERS
Why has Sarah Palin generated such energy? John J. Pitney Jr. writes at National Review Online (www.national review.com).
"Some reasons are obvious. Economic conservatives like her fiscal record. Gun-rights advocates are eager to get behind a moose-hunting NRA member. Social and religious conservatives profoundly admire her for welcoming a Down syndrome baby into the world. Often with good reason, they suspect that Republican politicians cynically adopt pro-life positions without any real commitment to the cause. Palin is different. She has walked the pro-life walk," Mr. Pitney said.
"There's something else that could rally the base even further. In the mainstream media and the blogosphere, liberals are sneering at her. The big hair, the big family, the hunting rifle, the degree from the University of Idaho, the husband who does commercial fishing and races snowmobiles - all these things tell the urban liberal elite that she's not one of them. Most telling of all, she placed second in the 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant. Bourgeois bohemians don't do beauty contests.
"The sneers may amuse fans of Keith Olbermann and 'The Daily Show,' but they might not go over well with ... you know, the kind of people who cling to guns and religion Some of them may have been thinking of sitting out the election or even crossing to Obama. But if they get the idea that liberals are laughing at them, they might regard a vote for the McCain-Palin ticket as a good way to register their disapproval."
ANOTHER MAVERICK
"Kristi Burton is a maverick, but not quite in the same way as John McCain," Fred Barnes writes at www.weeklystandard.com.
"She's a 21-year-old delegate to the Republican convention from Colorado with a large accomplishment to her credit. Almost singlehandedly, Burton got a referendum on the Colorado ballot this fall that declares that life begins at conception," Mr. Barnes said.
"Burton collected more than 130,000 signatures (76,047 were required) and warded off three legal challenges by a phalanx of pro-abortion organizations to get her referendum approved. It consists of one sentence that says in Colorado law 'the term person or persons shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization.'
"If passed by voters, her initiative - its official name is Amendment 48 - would mean an unborn child in Colorado would be protected from being aborted. Whether the courts, following the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, would allow it is another story.
"Like McCain, Burton has clashed with members of her own party. As you might guess, her referendum is controversial - especially among Republicans. The fear among some of them is that it may hurt Republican candidates, notably pro-life Senate candidate Bob Schaffer. How? By driving away suburban women voters who might otherwise vote for Schaffer and other Republicans. That's the fear anyway.
"Burton disagrees, arguing the amendment will attract more voters to the polls and help anti-abortion candidates like Schaffer. Republicans at the Colorado Republican convention in June sided with her. She was the seventh biggest vote-getter for 24 delegate slots."
* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washington times.com.
LOAD-DATE: September 3, 2008
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved